| New Jack |
 |
| Ring name(s) |
New Jack |
| Billed height |
6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) |
| Billed weight |
225 lb (102 kg) |
| Born |
(1963-01-03) January 3, 1963 (age 49)
Greensboro, NC |
| Trained by |
Ray Candy |
| Debut |
1992 |
Jerome Young (born January 3, 1963) is an American professional wrestler, better known by his stage name New Jack in ECW. He is known for his willingness to take dangerous bumps and his stiff hardcore wrestling style, often taking high risks and "shooting" on opponents, though he is only known to shoot on opponents who are deemed disrespectful in the ring. He is 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.
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 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 didn't want the reputation of gangsters to be put into the Tennessee area.
New Jack at an ECW event in 1998.
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.
During Jack's time in ECW when he had started to dive from anything and everything, he has stated in an interview he was contacted by the (at the time) WWF to work for them. Jack also stated he wouldn't leave ECW for either the WWF or WCW because they would "water him down" and "make him look weak", in competition to the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, The Undertaker and others that were working for the company at that time.
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 several 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 legitimately suffered brain damage and was permanently blinded in his right eye when he and his opponent, Vic Grimes, fell around fifteen 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.[1] 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 one 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."
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 Gilberto Melendez (better known as 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 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 wasn't going to lose dollar value from this match and won't have either a comedy, or a gimmick match, and told the booker he will kill Gypsy Joe in this hardcore match.[2]
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; Or as he claims in an interview was only nine 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.[3] 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 hard-core.
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.[4]
In the video game ECW Anarchy Rulz, New Jack's theme song was re-recorded by Bootsy Collins with unique lyrics, unlike every other character's theme, which consisted of sound-alikes of their real themes. The real theme ("Natural Born Killaz"), like everyone else's, could not be featured; copyright issues from their record labels wouldn't allow it. New Jack was featured in the 1999 wrestling documentary Beyond the Mat. In addition, he appeared in the television series Early Edition on May 6, 2000 as a biker in the episode "Mel Schwartz, Bounty Hunter". He was also featured in the video game Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes the Neighborhood.
New Jack is referenced in the Weezer song "El Scorcho". The line "watchin' Grunge legdrop New Jack through a press table" was derived from a caption for a photograph of New Jack fighting wrestler Johnny Grunge that was published in Pro Wrestling Illustrated.
New Jack took part in a shoot interview with The Iron Sheik and The Honky Tonk Man where the subject was Chris Benoit's murder-suicide. New Jack commented that nothing could excuse what Benoit had done and all people on WWE and elsewhere who were making excuses for him were hypocrites. He also thought it was ironic how Extreme Championship Wrestling was seen as violent and dangerous wrestling when he was working there and still only one person died under New Jack's time with the company, whereas WWE was "averaging three a year." (It should be noted that so far 5 performers, including Benoit, have died while under WWE contract. All 5 deaths happened within a 10 year period). He also has a DVD documentary called New Jack Hardcore: The History.
New Jack did a DVD interview with The Sandman (Jim Fullington) and Raven (Scott Levy) for Pro Wrestling Insider.
New Jack recently made his hip hop recording debut. He contributed several verses to indie rapper Duckman's new album Duckman for Presidente. An animated commercial for the album featuring a cartoon version of New Jack was recently released. New Jack's voice is featured in the commercial and he tells listeners to "buy the cd or I'll stab your ass". In the popular video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 the player can earn a call sign titled New Jack, referring to when he stabbed his opponent.[5][6][7]
New Jack has done several shoot interviews for RF Video. He also made a 2-disc shoot interview with Pro Wrestling Insider where he covered his entire career and starred in a couple of his matches.
In February 2012, a video surfaced on YouTube showing New Jack "shooting" on his opponent during an Indy match. New Jack had apparently told his short-haired opponent to take a pin fall, so when he kicked out of the pin by New Jack's long-haired cohort, out of perceived disrespect New Jack gave an unprotected chair shot directly to his opponent as he was being held back by the cohort. He then spills out of the ring, seemingly knocked out cold. Fans begin to realize something is wrong and call for the match as New Jack's cohort breaks kayfabe to check on him while blood begins to pool from his head. New Jack then picks him up and gives him stiff back shots as they go to the back.
- North Georgia Wrestling Association
- NGWA Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- NGWA Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Festus and Mustafa Saed[8]
- Legends Pro Wrestling
- XWF/LPW Hall of Fame Inductee- Class 2008 (2/22/08)
| Persondata |
| Name |
Jack, New |
| Alternative names |
Young, Jerome (real name) |
| Short description |
Professional wrestler |
| Date of birth |
January 3, 1963 |
| Place of birth |
Atlanta, Georgia |
| Date of death |
|
| Place of death |
|
