On May 14, 2021, legendary wrestler New Jack passed away after suffering a heart attack in his home Greensboro, North Carolina at the age of 58. New Jack was a divisive figure in the wrestling world. To many, he was deathmatch god -- an artist who sacrificed his body for time and time again to for our viewing pleasure. But to some, he was just another dangerous mudshow freak who had to resort to cheap acts of extreme violence to earn the approval of a small number of fans who shared a thirst for blood. Whichever side you come down on, the one thing nobody can deny is that New Jack lived a very interesting life.
New Jack: The Early Years
Jerome Young was born on January 3, 1963 in Greensboro, North Carolina. According to the man himself, his childhood was pretty rough. As a kid, New Jack witnessed numerous acts of domestic violence between his parents. On one occasion, New Jack's alcoholic father stabbed his mother a half-dozen times. In a separate incident the young Jerome saw his father shoot his mother in the leg. In his memoir, Young said the police ignored the incident because “nobody was going to put a Black man in jail for hurting a Black woman.”
Young's family moved around a lot, and Young attended multiple schools as a result. The man who would be New Jack eventually graduated from D.M. Therrell High School in Atlanta, Georgia. Young showed a penchant and natural talent for football, but instead of perusing an NFL career, Young began committing robberies.
Young was charged with armed robbery and served a two-year sentence at Alto State Prison. In prison, Young began lifting weights and developed a pro-wrestlers physique. After being released from prison, New Jack began playing football again. He was playing semi-professionally when a teammate who was training to become a wrestler introduced him to Jim Crockett Promotions star Ray Candy, who became Young's pro-wrestling trainer too.
Young settled on a ring name after watching the 1991 action movie New Jack City, directed by Mario Van Peebles. Ray Candy facilitated Young's 1992 debut in the Memphis, Tennessee-based United States Wrestling Association (USWA) and New Jack was born.
New Jack, The Gangstas, and Jim Cornette
After a few years working for various independent promotions in Georgia and Tennessee, New Jack joined forces with former WCW jobber Mustafa Saed and joined the Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountain Wrestling roster in 1994.
In SMW, Young and Saed were joined by their “bodyguard” Accie Connor (aka future WWE Superstar D’Lo Brown) the trio was known as "The Gangstas" and they began to push the buttons of the promotion's predominantly white fanbase with their edgy and engaging promos.
Memorable feuds with The Rock ’n’ Roll Express and later with the team of Tracy Smothers and Tony Anthony followed. To begin with, The Gangstas's style was fairly conventional, but they soon introduced the use of foreign objects into their repertoire. The foundations for New Jack's 30-year extreme streak had been laid.
One of New Jack's most infamous SMW moments came when gave a “special shout-out" to his "homeboy" O.J. Simpson.
"Keep up the good work, baby! Two less we got to worry about!,” New Jack said down the camera.
Paul Heyman's ECW And The Mass Transit Incident
In 1995, The Gangstas parted ways with Smoky Mountain and joined Paul Heyman’s Extreme Championship Wrestling, where New Jack would remain into the Philly-based promotion went out of business in 2001.
In ECW, New Jack and Saed chased after the ECW World Tag Team Championship and began feuding with the tag team champions The Eliminators (John Kronus and Perry Saturn). At a 1996 ECW event titled The Doctor Is In, The Gangstas won their first World Tag Team Championship.
"I always saw New Jack’s performances as a mid-1990s urban version of the American Dream Dusty Rhodes,” Paul Heyman said of the New Jack in a Grantland piece back in 2015. “He’s a bad man, placed in a bad situation, under bad circumstances, and he’s going to now show the bad guys how to be truly bad.”
One of New Jack's most controversial moments also occurred in 1996. At a show in Massachusetts, the Gangstas faced D-Von Dudley and Erich “Mass Transit” Kulas. The problem was that Kulas only 17-year-old. Kulas lied to Paul Heyman about his age and level of experience in order to secure a spot on the card. Prior to the match, Kulas asked New Jack to cut him during the match, and of course, New Jack was more than happy to oblige. The situation that followed would be known as the "Mass Transit incident."
In the match, New Jack sliced Kulas's forehead open with a scalpel and cut way deeper than what was considered "safe." Two of Kulas's arteries were severed. While Kulas was bleeding profusely, New Jack hit the teenager with his "187" chair drop from the top rope, and landed on his skull. Kulas was taken to hospital, and lawsuits followed.
New Jack After ECW
When ECW closed its doors on 2001, New Jack began working for a California-based promotion Xtreme Pro Wrestling, where it became clear that his penchant for ultra violence had not dissipated. On February 23, 2002 New Jack went one-on-one with Vic Grimes in an infamous match that ended with New Jack throwing Grimes off the scaffolding. Grimes plummeted to the ring below, missing the tables that were meant to break his fall.
New Jack made several appearances for TNA (now known as IMPACT) in 2003, and continued wrestling regularly for the next decade. He would retire and unretire more than once. His final match took place an ICW in April of this year.
Despite his passing, New Jack's legacy of violence will undoubtedly live long in pro-wrestling lore.