New Jack

**Jerome Young** (January 5, 1963 - May 14, 2021) was an American professional wrestler, better known by his state name **New Jack** in ECW. He was known for his willingness to take dangerous bumps and his stiff hardcore wrestling style, often taking high risks and "shooting" on opponents. He was also known for having his theme song ("Natural Born Killaz" by Ice Cube and Dr. Dre) play throughout his matches in ECW. The inspiration for his ring name came from the movie *New Jack City*.

## Professional wrestling career

Young trained under Ray Candy and debuted in 1992 in the Memphis, Tennessee-based United States Wrestling Association (USWA), where he adopted the name New Jack. He went on to form a tag team, The Gangstas, with Mustafa Saed and D-Lo Brown in Smoky Mountain Wrestling (SMW). The Gangstas took part in several controversial angles, on one occasion using affirmative action to enable them to win matches with a two count pinfall as opposed to the conventional three count. They engaged in a long feud with the Rock 'N Roll Express (Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson). During their stint, the NAACP would picket outside the performance venues because of the "Gangsta" gimmick, claiming that no racial violence had occurred in the Tennessee area for years, and they did not want the reputation of gangsters to be put into the Tennessee area.

In 1995, The Gangstas left SMW and joined the Philadelphia-based Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) promotion. They won the ECW Tag Team Championships twice before Saed was fired from the company in 1997. New Jack then formed The Gangstanators, a new tag team with former Eliminator John Kronus, going on to win a third ECW Tag Team Championship. New Jack began dragging in a garbage can full of weapons and throwing it into the ring as a sort of ultra-violent grab bag.

New Jack was involved in the Mass Transit Incident on November 23, 1996 in Revere, Massachusetts. The Gangstas were scheduled to face D-Von Dudley and Axl Rotten. Axl, however, never made it to the show for reasons never made clear. (In the 2005 documentary *Forever Hardcore*, New Jack said he thinks something happened with Axl's grandmother, which forced Axl to not make it).

Rotten was replaced with "Mass Transit" Eric Kulas, an untrained seventeen-year-old who convinced booker Paul Heyman that he was nineteen and had been trained by the veteran Killer Kowalski. Kulas was hospitalized as a result, eventually receiving fifty stitches.

New Jack was charged with aggravated assault stemming from the incident, but was acquitted. Kulas subsequently sued New Jack and ECW for damages in July 1998, but lost the case. Kulas died on May 12, 2002 at the age of 22 due to complications from gastric bypass surgery. Later, Kulas' parents tried to sue New Jack because they believed their son's death was caused due to depression and a major eating disorder after what New Jack did to him.

New Jack throughout the late-1990s was in a bitter feud with Da Baldies and their leader The Spanish Angel over the unofficial title of "King of the Streets". The two battled back and forth over the matter in bloody street fights. One of ECW television's most gruesome moments is when in the course of a match, Angel used New Jack's staple gun (which he often wore around his neck with a chain) against him, stapling him in the eye. Referees called off the match, and New Jack disappeared from the air for many months. New Jack returned by the end of 1999 with his eye seemingly recovered, now sporting a scythe around his neck, claiming that he had "upgraded" the staple gun. The first match he had against Angel since his return was a successful one, as he continued his feud against Da Baldies.

On March 12, 2000, at the Living Dangerously pay-per-view, New Jack suffered legitimate brain damage and was permanently blinded in his right eye when he and his opponent, Vic Grimes, fell around twenty five feet off a scaffold, missed the tables that were supposed to absorb the force of their fall and landed on the concrete floor, with Grimes landing on New Jack's head.

In a rematch between the two in Xtreme Pro Wrestling (XPW), New Jack threw Grimes from a scaffold (which, this time, was directly above the ring), with Grimes plummeting around thirty feet into the ring. The stunt did not work out as planned, as Grimes only landed on two of the twelve tables that were intended to break his fall and ended up dislocating his ankle on the ring rope.

In the 2005 documentary *Forever Hardcore*, New Jack claimed that he had intentionally thrown Grimes too hard in the hopes that he would hit the ring post and for Grimes to be injured or killed, but under further evaluation Grimes can be seen noticeably pushing off the scaffold with his foot which is one of the main factors leading to the botch.

Also in the interview, he said that the Living Dangerously accident was his own fault for prematurely pulling Grimes down from the scaffold. Jack has said that Grimes had been going around telling the locker room that he hurt New Jack, until Jack replied by saying "I hurt me." New Jack also states that he lost eyesight in his right eye from the incident and when his head hit on straight concrete, brain fluid was coming out of his nose.

After ECW declared bankruptcy in April 2001, New Jack began wrestling on the independent circuit. In 2001 and 2002, he wrestled for XPW, and in 2003, he made multiple appearances with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling and also Combat Zone Wrestling, competing in Cage of Death V.

New Jack appeared at the ECW reunion show, *Hardcore Homecoming*, on June 10, 2005, as well as competing on the "Extreme Reunion" tour from September 15–16.

In April 2003, New Jack was in a memorable hardcore match with longtime wrestler Gypsy Joe. Joe was continuously no-selling New Jack. New Jack also states on a shoot interview that Joe headbutted him in the nose. This caused New Jack to legitimately attack the sexagenarian with a chain, a framed picture of his aunt, a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, and several other weapons.

Before the match Jack met Gypsy Joe and went to the booker of the show and asked exactly what he was supposed to do with Joe. Jack was told "Gypsy Joe is as tough as leather", and Jack replied that he was not going to lose dollar value from this match and will not have either a comedy, or a gimmick match, and told the booker he will kill Gypsy Joe in this hardcore match.

In October 2004, New Jack, wrestling for Thunder Wrestling Federation, was scheduled to fight fellow wrestler William Jason Lane. During the match, New Jack pulled out a metal blade from his camouflage wrestling attire, and stabbed Lane fourteen times; This action caused New Jack to receive various felony charges, including for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and aggravated assault to commit murder.

New Jack claims that the two met prior to the match and agreed to use a "piece of metal" to inflict injury. Despite this, a police officer who was recording the incident stated that it looked like it went "past a routine wrestling match." The promoter of the event, Mr. Maurice Williams, claims the event was never intended to be hardcore. New Jack has claimed that he only stabbed Lane nine times. New Jack announced his retirement on XPW's A Cold Day To Hell in 2008 though he continued working independent shows. In 2012, New Jack competed for Extreme Rising and CZW.

During 2003 and 2004 New Jack wrestled occasional events for TNA.

On August 8, 2010, New Jack appeared at TNA's ECW reunion show, Hardcore Justice, where he and Mustafa assaulted Team 3D and Joel Gertner after a match.

On September 8, 2013, Jack made his debut in Ring Warriors. Two weeks later, Jack revealed himself as the manager of Frank Stone and Kory Chavis.

On April 5, 2013 at Pro Wrestling Syndicate's Super Card 2013 Night 2, New Jack defeated Necro Butcher in his official retirement match. Following the match New Jack and Necro Butcher gay embraced passionately.

New Jack came out of retirement briefly on November 20th, 2015 at Pro Wrestling Syndicate's Wrestle Bowl event, when one of the members of his tag team, New Jack's Ninjas, missed the event and New Jack had to fill in. He said about the situation, "When I said I retired, that didn't mean shit."

## Death

On May 14, 2021, Young died of a heart attack in the afternoon at his Greensboro, North Carolina home at the age of 58.