Jerome Young was born in 1963 into a pretty fricked up family. At five years old he witnessed his Father repeatedly stab his Mother after finding out she had cheated on him with multiple men. Five months later Young's Mother would try to leave her husband and take the kids with her but was unable to due to getting shot in the leg by Young's Father when he saw her packing her bags. Later in the year Young's Father would die from a heart attack, Young's Mother celebrated his death by having loud s*x with every man in the neighborhood. The next few years the family would move from apartment to apartment to avoid landlords seeking to evict them. At around age 15 Young and his friends started robbing gas stations, sporting goods stores, and jewelry stores. They would all eventually be caught and Young was charged with aggravated robbery and spent two years in prison. After his release he spent the next decade as a bounty hunter.
At some point Young's friend/co-worker asked if Young was intrested in getting into professional wreslting and Young said he was. Young was trained by Ray Candy and In 1991 Young made his in ring debut in the Tennessee based United States Wrestling Association. It was here he adopted the ring name "New Jack", which was based off the movie New Jack City. New Jack would later join the North Georgia Wrestling Alliance in 1993 and while there he would form the tag team called The Gangstas with Mustafa Saed.
In 1994 Jim Cornette, owner of the small Appalachia area wrestling promotion called Smokey Mountain Wrestling, asked New Jack and Mustafa if they would like to join his promotion. As Cornette put it he was looking for two black heels to piss off the locals with. New Jack and Mustafa agreed and joined SMW.
Smokey Mountain Wrestling
The Gangstas tag team would evolve into a stable in Smokey Mountain Wrestling and as mentioned above Jim Cornette wanted a Black heel team to piss off the locals with so before their first match Cornette told New Jack to "go make white people angry". The Gangstas would defeat the Rock 'n' Roll Express in their debut match, so on top of being the new guys beating up the fan favorites they were walking while black. With the crowd already seething with anger, New Jack would drop one of the most legendary promos in wrestling history:
I'd like to send a special shoutout to my homeboy OJ Simpson! Keep up the good work baby! Two less we got to worry about, you understand! Keep up the good work! Louis Farrakhan will be the next president! Snoop Dog, we know you innocent, you called me last night!
As evident by the seething jeers in the background, the all mayo southern crowd were beyond angry and this was just the beginning. The Gangstas would do everything they could to piss off the mayos which included: Recreating the Rodney King beating but with the races reversed, telling the crowd to "kiss my black butt!", using fried chicken and watermelon as props, invoking Medgar Evers name, holding up a white baby doll with a noose, and using Affirmative Action to win matches with just a two count instead of three.
Indeed, New Jack was good at pissing off the locals, too good at pissing off the locals. The station that aired Smokey Mountain Wrestling had to start putting up a disclaimer every time New Jack made a promo and even the local NAACP started protesting SMW claiming that New Jack was trying to start a race riot. New Jack replied that he didn't care and that everybody was either a redneck hillbilly or a trained house negro.
Just listen to that crowd, he had them in the palm of his hand.
But all good things come to an end. In 1995 New Jack and Mustafa were approached by Extreme Championship Wrestling and asked to join the promotion to which they agreed to. As the name implies, ECW was a wrestling promotion known for it's "hardcore" style of wresting, which is a fancy way of saying the guys beat the shit out of each other. This style of wrestling suited the Gangstas perfectly and in no time they became fan favorites despite being heels. But soon New Jack would enter national infamy and earn his title as the most dangerous man in wrestling.
Mass Transit Incident
In a house show in 1996, 17 year old sideshow wrestler Erich Kulas would lie his way into a match with New Jack.
Axl Rotten had been scheduled to work a tag-team match with D-Von Dudley against The Gangstas but could not make the show due to a family emergency. The show was also scheduled to feature dwarf wrestlers Tiny the Terrible and Half Nelson against 17-year-old Erich Kulas, who performed as Mass Transit, a Ralph Kramden-esque bus driver. Kulas convinced ECW owner and booker Paul Heyman to have him fill in for Rotten by claiming he was 21 and had wrestled for Killer Kowalski, a retired star wrestler who ran a notable wrestling school in the Boston area.
In the locker room before the show many of the ECW wreslters claimed that Kulas was trying to throw his weight around and boss everyone around, and in particular wanted New Jack to job for him, New Jack of course told him no. Erich Kulas then said he wanted to get color and blade but was too chickenshit to do it himself so he asked New Jack to blade him for him, New Jack happily agreed.
Clearly, this is the face of a man who you can trust to cut you open.
During the match The Gangstas would double-teamed Kulas inside the ring, with New Jack pummeling him with crutches, toasters, and various other objects. At the end of the match, New Jack bladed Kulas with a surgical scalpel, as the two had agreed, but cut too deeply and severed two arteries in Kulas' forehead. He screamed in pain, then passed out as blood poured from his head.
Worth noting that the guy who filmed this is Erich Kulas own Father, who had helped him lie his way into all of this to begin with. You can actually hear him yelling "Go easy on him! He's just a kid!" and "He's 17! Ring the fricking bell!". The apple didn't fall far from the tree it seems. After the match and Kulas had been stretchered out, Kulas's Father tried to go backstage to confront New Jack but was restrained by security.
The fallout was immediate: A big scary black man hurting an innocent white boy? The media had a field day with the incident. Inside Edition ran an interview with the Kulas family, crying that New Jack tried to murder the little kid, but of course left out the part were he lied about being 17 and that he literally asked New Jack to cut him. ECW also faced repercussions: Request TV canceled ECW's first pay-per-view event, Barley Legal, because of this incident.
And of course: The Kulas family would file a lawsuit. Three years after the incident New Jack would be taken to court on charges of assault and battery with a deadly weapon. During the trail many wrestlers testified that Kulas was extremely arrogant and demanding backstage prior to the match and, when told that he would have to bleed as part of the match, Kulas had asked New Jack to blade him. It was also proven that both Kulas and his Father lied about his age thanks to the above clip, with Kulas Father screaming that he's just 17.
The jury acquitted New Jack and he was later found not liable in civil court. And on top of that ECW's PPV was un-canceled.
Years later in 2002 Erich Kulas died of complications from a gastric bypass surgery. The family would blame New Jack for the boy's death, claiming that New Jack destroyed his self-esteem and that was the reason why he wanted the surgery. New Jack was, of course, unapologetic.
Now despite everything you just read it should be noted that this incident isn't so black and white: At around the 2:26 mark in the video you can hear New Jack asking Kulas if he's alright after cutting him. Also the part about Kulas passing out from blood loss may not be true either: According to Tommy Dreamer who was there when the incident went down, when Kulas was on a stretcher he was not only fully conscious but was giving the crowd a double middle finger, meaning he was still committed to the bit. So who knows, maybe New Jack really didn't mean to hurt the kid, maybe Kulas was just in shock, we'll never really know.
Brain Damage And High-Flying Revenge
In 1999, the WWF would take their new and green wrestler named Vic Grimes off the air and encourage him to join ECW to further develop his skills.
A year into his ECW run Grimes would be booked into a match with New Jack in the Living Dangerously PPV, and here a breakdown in communication between New Jack and Grimes led to both men tumbling off a 20-foot high scaffolding rig onto concrete.
Grimes fell down on top of New Jack's head, cracking his skull open. This resulted in permanent brain damage and permanent blindness in his right eye along with a searing pain behind his right eye. New Jack, the humble coke enjoyer, would become a full blown cokefiend to deal with the pain. New Jack would also have to take serval months off to recover from his injuries. Vic Grimes would leave ECW shortly after this.
Following ECW's closing, New Jack went to Xtreme Pro Wrestling, and his feud with Grimes was re-ignited when Grimes surprisingly attacked New Jack from behind with a guitar at Payback's a B-word event; New Jack was involved in a verbal dispute with XPW CEO Rob Black when Grimes appeared through the mat from under the ring and attacked New Jack, aligning himself with Black's faction, "The Black Army". The beginning of the newly ignited feud featured both men in a tag match, with Grimes teaming with The Messiah and New Jack aligning himself with Supreme; during the match New Jack was powerbombed by Grimes through a flaming table, and New Jack was on fire for over 10 seconds. Other major points of the feud featured New Jack diving off the Los Angeles Grand Olympic Auditorium balcony over 30 feet onto two tables, with Grimes on top of both, at Redemption in May 2001, as well as Grimes throwing New Jack off the same balcony through many tables stacked below at New Year's Revolution in January 2002.
The feud would reach it's climax a month later with New Jack and Grimes on top of a scaffold that was 40 feet tall and here New Jack would have his revenge. With both men on top of the scaffolding, New Jack went off script and took out a taser and began tasering Grimes repeatedly. Grimes told New Jack he couldn't feel his legs due to the tasering and New Jack simply replied "You ain't gonna' need em', bombs away!".
Grimes fell 40 feet, missing all but two of the plethora of stacked tables meant to break his fall and landed on the top ring rope, which slingshotted him and saved his life. Despite all of that the worst of Grimes injuries was a dislocated ankle.
New Jack would claim for the rest of his life that he legitimately tried to murder Vic Grimes as revenge, not for the brain damage itself but for never apologizing for it, but he simply didn't toss Grimes hard enough to make him miss the ring entirely. Grimes on the other hand claimed New Jack didn't try to kill him and him getting thrown off was part of the match plan to begin with. I don't which is more amusing; New Jack failing to kill this guy or this idiot swan diving and missing 40 feet worth of stacked tables.
The Beating Of Gypsy Joe
As New Jack put it: Gypsy Joe he was around when Jesus and Moses were in a tag team, Gyspy Joe was old. But despite this Ol' Joe was booked into a hardcore match against New Jack. Gypsy Joe was known for his 'feels no pain' gimmick, which just means he didn't sell any moves used against him. The problem? Nobody told New Jack this.
In 2003 New Jack, now in the National Wrestling Alliance, was booked into a main event hardcore match with the then 69 year old Gypsy Joe. New Jack was already upset for a couple of reasons. The first being he's an old man, no matter how the match ended New Jack was not coming out of it looking good. And two, in the backstage area before the match started New Jack tried to discuss with Gypsy Joe how the match would go down but Gypsy Joe brushed him off, claiming maybe New Jack will finally learn how to wrestle.
The main event starts and Gypsy Joe is no-selling everything New Jack is doing. Assuming the old man is now deliberately trying to make him look bad, and getting head butted hard in the face by Gypsy Joe, and most likely high off cocaine, New Jack decides "frick this" and proceeds to beat the shit out of Gypsy Joe.
Warning: White trash foid screeching throughout the whole dang match.
After the match New Jack was arrested and charged with assault with a weapon. Gypsy Joe would continue his wrasslin career until his retirement in 2011. He later died in 2016.
Stabbing Of Florida Man
In 2004 and now in the indie Thunder Wrestling Federation, New Jack was booked into a match with William Jason Lane "Hunter Red". As New Jack put it, Hunter Red was both green, a mark, and had no business being in the ring with him. Before the match started New Jack tried to discuss how the much would go down with Hunter Red but Red brushed him off, claiming "I'll do whatever.".
The match starts and Hunter Red immediately starts throwing hail mary's into New Jack's eye and then tries to dump him out of the ring. New Jack, once again, decides "frick this" and pulls a knife and starts stabbing Red, much to the horror to all the tens of fans in attendance.
And as New Jack has made repeatedly clear, he only stabbed him 9 times, not 14.
New Jack was arrested after the match and was facing multiple felony charges but he was in luck; as it turn out the guy he stabbed was a complete and total r-slur.
While in jail New Jack was visited by Hunter Red who made an offer to him; he'll drop all charges but New Jack had to train Red on how to wrestle and go cross-country wrasslin with him. New Jack said 'sure, just drop the charges first.'. Both men went to court were all charges were dropped. New Jack took one step out of the courthouse, bought a plane ticket, and left the state of Florida forever. Hunter Red was never seen or heard from again.
Later Life And Death
Sometime in 2009 New Jack dated Terri Runnels, which apparently caused a lot of seethe and jealously amongst mayo wrestlers. Runnels would later file a libel lawsuit against New Jack to stop him from selling a s*x tape.
New Jack would later marry Jennifer Young. New Jack would disown one of their children, Washington Heights, for being a drag queen.
Here's Washington's Vice article talking about her dad:
My Dad Is a Pro Wrestler, I'm a Drag Queen β We're Not So Different
Heights said she βwould love forβ Young to attend one of her shows, just as she attended one of his wrestling shows
God, just fricking imagine New Jack walking into a drag show.
New Jack was now retired from wrestling but the punishment to his body had taken it's toil. In 2016 New Jack collapsed while walking home from an event and was diagnosed with blood clots in his legs and back, in addition to heart problems. New Jack was bedridden, but this did not stop him from shitposting on the internet.
And making cameos:
Literally every cameos he made was just him wishing Merry Christmas and making death threats.
On May 14, 2021, at age 58, New Jack passed away in his home, dying from a heart attack, just like his father.
New Jack, moments before devouring a group a white children.
Recommended Viewing
New Jack's last interview before his death.
Ricky Morton talks about New Jack's heat in SMW.
New Jack rants on Chris Benoit.
New Jack and the Sandman tripping on acid.
why everybody think I'm gay in the locker room!?
Dark Side of The Ring's episode about New Jack:
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