The Original Gangsta.
"Like his wrestling style or not, you have to respect a guy like New Jack, who has stabbed people in the ring and, from his past career as a bounty hunter, allegedly has several justifiable homicides to his name. Wait, is 'respect' the word I'm looking for?"
Jerome Young (January 3, 1963 – May 14, 2021), better known as New Jack, was an American Professional Wrestler from Atlanta, GA. He is said to have been a bounty hunter before becoming a professional wrestler, though this has not been confirmed or denied. He debuted in 1992 in the North Georgia Wrestling Alliance and the USWA in Memphis, TN., but didn't make his name until joining Smoky Mountain Wrestling as a member of the tag team the Gangstas (with Mustafa Saied) in 1994. Their original gimmick was of two militant black men from South Central Los Angeles... in a territory (eastern Tennessee) with an almost entirely white audience, sucka!
The Gangstas then went on to ECW in mid-1995 in Philadelphia, where they eventually dropped the race angle and focused on the other half of their gimmick: Taking people apart. This being the mid-nineties, they also turned face.
New Jack has been at the centre of some truly stomach-churning incidents in wrestling, such as: the Mass Transit Incident where he mangled Eric Kulas, a teenager who managed to get into a tag team match involving New Jack by lying about his age and falsely claiming he was a trained wrestler; the ECW Living Dangerously 2000 accident (a.k.a. the Danbury Fall) where he and Vic Grimes botched a stunt and fell 20 ft onto concrete;note a 2003 match with one Gypsy Joe that devolved into a real-life brawl when Joe refused to sell Jack's moves (bad idea); and, in 2004
, shanking another wrestler in the middle of a match for "stiff shot"-ing him (ie. hitting him too hard, rather than fake-hard)... and the list goes on. He also claims that WWE Diva Tammy Lynn Sytch approached him to help assassinate her boyfriend, amongst other lurid stories.
He has also competed in XPW, TNA, CZW, IWA Mid-South and several other promotions. He is a 1x SMW Tag Team Champion with Mustafa and a 3x ECW World Tag Team Champion, holding the belts twice with Mustafa and once with former enemy John Kronus of The Eliminators.
On May 14, 2021, he passed away from a heart attack at the age of 58.
"AND HERE COME NEW JACK'S TROPES!":
- Abusive Parents: In the Dark Side of the Ring episode centering around him, New Jack claims his father was this. He recalls two incidents of domestic violence (his father stabbing his mother one time, and another incident where he shot her through her leg when she attempted to flee with him when New Jack was a toddler) that he says 'fucked him up.'
- Arch-Enemy: Jim Cornette, The Public Enemy, the Eliminators (Perry Saturn and John Kronus), The Dudley Boys, Jack Victory, Da Baldies, Terri Runnels, Tammy Lynn Sytch. He seemed to go looking for trouble by posting online rants about people, although from this same source he had made up with Cornette, even if they were still opposed as far as wrestling shows go.
- Ax-Crazy: He was very enthusiastic about his violence and clearly not in complete touch with the way the world works. Most noteable is him slicing open untrained 17-year-old Mass Transit's forehead with a surgical scalpel (a wound which required 100 stitches to close), stabbing a Florida wrestler with a jagged piece of metal 14 times for no real reason, and giving veteran wrestler Gypsy Joe a skull fracture with a baseball bat in retaliation for a series of stiff shots. Not to mention him and Mustafa beating the hell out of indie team the American Gangsters for "stealing their gimmick". But you can call it Crazy Awesome. Why else would his matches get "this is awesome" chanted during them?
- Background Music Override: In ECW at least, you knew that a match was going to be extra insane when his music started when he came out, and then looped until the match was over.
- Bald of Evil: He first made a splash in the wrestling industry as a bad guy.
- Bash Brothers: Mustafa, John Kronus, Little Spike Dudley, Tommy Dreamer.
- Best Served Cold: After the Danbury Fall, New Jack was willing to let bygones be bygones until he reunited with Grimes in the XPW, where Grimes was supposedly overheard boasting that he hurt New Jack. Unsurprisingly, New Jack took exception to that, saying (and restating it over and over again in interviews) that it wasn't Grimes who hurt New Jack: New Jack hurt New Jack (that is, agreeing to put his life in Grimes' hands in the first place). The two faced each other in a Scaffold Match, where New Jack lifted Grimes over his head and sent him plummeting into a pyramid of tables. In shoot interviews New Jack claims that he had intended to kill Grimes by overshooting the throw and impaling him on the turnbuckle. But the scaffold had been moved back a few feet, so he missed. Or is it all a work? We will never know.
- Berserk Button: According to the Dark Side of the Ring, the thing that frequently got him riled up is being called the N-Word.
- Blood Knight: He did not need much encouragement to run down to the ring to fight someone.
- Bounty Hunter: In Real Life. Or so he claimed.
- Bullying a Dragon: There is no excuse for what Jack did to Mass Transit. But listening in on interviews with the Blue Meanie, Kid Kash, and others who were witness to it, it must have been like like a car crash in slow-motion. Eric Kulas (the kid who would get the Mass Transit gimmick) cons his way into backstage, flops down next to Tazz and Paul Heyman, and starts playing armchair booker, telling everybody which spots to do and how to put him over. The final insult: he tells Jack to give him some "color" (colloquialism: bleed). He didn't specify how much.Jack: [recounting] Sure, I'll do it for you. Gladly.
- Butt-Monkey: Few of the ECW wrestlers looked that good during the time but New Jack especially was the subject of a lot of unprovoked attacks during his first TNA run, so Jeff Jarrett or whoever was the big face at the time could save the day. It would count as The Worf Effect, but only to those familiar with Jack's prior TNA career.
- Chairman of the Brawl: He'd use pretty much anything, but a folding chair was his first choice, most of the time.
- Climbing Climax: Meet New Jack — he falls off things.
- Cluster F-Bomb: At times in his promos. See the Quotes Page
- Comedic Sociopathy: During the "Respect" match between AJ Styles and Homicide at the International Wrestling Cartel, New Jack said that instead of following the stipulation and admitting they respect the winner, the loser should instead rob the winner and kidnap his children.
- Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: His gimmick in Smoky Mountain Wrestling, where he and his partner would play the role of fearsome gang bangers (New Jack was on law enforcement's side in real life) who had came to the South on a dare relating to fighting the The Rock 'n' Roll Express after they had been bragging about beating all comers on the street.
- Dark Shepherd: New Jack was a borderline preacher in PWX and PWS, and surprisingly was preaching about the drawbacks of Garbage Wrestling. However, New Jack was still more than willing to use garbage wrestling to prove his point, if reminding people he could and showing them how to wrestle properly did not get the point across.
- Death from Above: From the top rope, balconies, even a van. More than once, he has set up for a balcony dive or from some other high place in an arena (to put his opponent through a table) and announcer Joey Styles has said, "No way, not even New Jack is that crazy," and been proven wrong, since New Jack not only pulled off the dive from some impossible height or improbable angle, but was even able to get up from it.
- Dented Iron: Sleep deprivation and memory loss from the Danbury incident plagued him for the rest of his life, and that doesn't even touch on the various other injuries he sustained. He eventually died at 58 due to a heart attack.
- Determinator: Would work through incredible pain and injuries and will sacrifice himself (see his balcony dives) to beat his opponents.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": As he said once during a "Pulp Fiction montage" (quick promos from various wrestlers with "Miserlou" playing over them) on ECW Hardcore TV in 1998, "Jerome Young. On the streets, it's New Jack."
- Double Standard: He had strongly condemned Sunny for cheating on his friend Chris Candido with multiple guys backstage in ECW but took obscene pride in bragging about how he himself had cuckolded other men like Goldust with their wives such as Terri.
- Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male: He was implied to have raped Jeremy Borash during the first TNA Hardcore Justice PPV. It was completely Played for Laughs.
- The Dreaded: Some wrestlers were reportedly fearful for their lives when they worked with New Jack, and fans were often afraid to approach him at meet and greets. Considering his reputation they may have had a point.
- Enemy of My Enemy: After Perry Saturn left for WCW and Mustafa disappeared, teamed with John Kronus, formerly an enemy as a member of the Eliminators, to defeat The Dudley Boys for the ECW World Tag Team Titles at ECW As Good as It Gets, September 20, 1997.
- Everyone Has Standards: For a man infamous for being unnecessarily violent to anyone who pissed him off, it says a lot when there are lines even he wouldn't cross.
- New Jack was willing to be a lecherous person and show zero remorse for anything....but even he knew to draw the line when he heard the news of the Chris Benoit murder-suicide. So much that he (in the usual New Jack style) launched into a huge "The Reason You Suck" Speech towards defenders of Benoit.
- He also left an angry voice message for XPW owner, Rob Black, chastising him for hiring two goons to attack and mutilate Messiah in his home.
- Despite having no qualms about getting high before his matches (especially via cocaine), he refused to smoke pencil shavings when his partner, Mustafa Saed offered them to him.
"If you smoke that shit, it's gonna come back and haunt you one day." - Expy
- His style could be best compared to that of Gypsy Joe, ironically enough, although he's more frequently compared "The Madman from the Sudan" Abdullah the Butcher, despite being smaller, lighter, faster, etc, because that's who Jack looks the most like on account of their darkish skin and scarred foreheads. Jack had used a fork a few times too, although it was not his signature weapon.
- "The Notorious 187" Homicide has been compared to New Jack. His tag team with Shawn Hernandez as the Latin American Xchange is also considered one to the Gangstas.
- For more irony, The Dudley Boys would wear ring gear in a similar style to Jack during their WWE run, although that could just be taken as a general ECW tribute in which Jack's camouflage played a role.
- Cryme Tyme in WWE were a parody of the Gangstas, without the success.
- Finishing Move
- The 187 (top rope chairshot), flying guitar shot.
- He used the Diving Headbutt at first in SMW.
- The Artifact: His diving chairshot was originally part of the Gangstas' finisher, which was Mustafa slamming an opponent and Jack coming off the top with the chair.
- Flanderization: In the beginning, Jack improvised a few high spots as a way to get himself over. It worked—too well. All of a sudden, the office was excitedly asking, "What're you gonna dive off tonight?", and it became a handicap. A lucrative one, but a handicap nonetheless. He actually did stop doing dives when people stopped paying to see them.
- Forgot Flanders Could Do That: The PWX commentators were flabbergasted when New Jack not only said he was going to wait to kill Shooter Storm, came to the ring with no (visible) weapons but executed a side headlock take down, it having been decades since most people had seen Jack simply wrestle.
- Gangsta Rap: Along with "Natural Born Killaz," the Gangstas also used Snoop Doggy Dogg's "Murder Was the Case" as entrance music.
- Garbage Wrestler: If not the codifier, he may have been the best pure example, since he would actually bring garbage cans full of weapons to the ring for his matches. He even provides the trope's page quote. His whole offense was built around hitting people with weapons and sometimes diving off of a balcony or some other high place to put someone through a table. However, at PWX he said that he wrestled before he began swinging chairs and at the end had to start wrestling again as swinging chairs was not getting him paid enough.
- Improvised Weapon: Garbage can, chair, table, guitar, fork, chain, vacuum cleaner, nightstick, loaf of bread, bus stop sign, telephone, staple gun, crutch, prosthetic leg, a Nintendo Entertainment System, cord and all... The list never ends.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: According to Devin Sturgis, New Jack really was a nice guy, in defiance of what his peers had to say on the matter. The Iron Sheik and D'Lo Brown also said they loved New Jack, even after the latter had his ass beat by him.
- Ink-Suit Actor: In Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes the Neighborhood and ECW's Hardcore Revolution and ECW Anarchy Rulz video games.
- Leitmotif
- Made of Iron: Even by the standards of ECW, New Jack absorbed an absolutely insane amount of punishment.
- The Mentor: New Jack decided on a whim to guide Pro Wrestling Syndicate Tag Team Champions Black Hollywood, aiming to mold them into the best combination of The Minnesota Wrecking Crew, Rock N Roll Express and The Gangstas as possible.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Villain: The Mass Transit debacle was one of the two incidents, the other being Raven's Nest crucifying the Sandman at High Incident, that nearly killed off ECW's chances at a PPV deal.
- Nostalgia Filter: Averted. He was vocally critical of any attempts at reuniting ECW. In Jack's opinion, simply slapping the ECW name on it won't magically bring those times back to life. And it probably didn't help that he was seldom invited to any of them either.
- Odd Friendship
- With Chris Candido, in Real Life. He acknowledged it during his online feud with Tammy Lynn "Sunny" Sytch, Candido's widow.
- While it would be a stretch to call them close friends, New Jack was one of the closest things Invader #1 had to a a non Puerto Rican friend in the wrestling business.
- At some point he struck up a friendship with The Fallen Angel of Kevin Sullivan's Army Of Darkness, and the Iron Sheik.
- He also had one of sorts with the Sandman, as he was the first wrestler to greet New Jack when he arrived at ECW, and the two became fast friends.
- Off on a Technicality: Claims to have had four justifiable homicides on his record, and was arrested MANY times in his career.
- Once per Episode
- The number of his matches that don't include blood (either his own, his opponent's, or both) is very short.
- When he would face the Dudleys, Big Dick Dudley would inevitably get hit with the guitar.
- Only in It for the Money: Once cut a promo about how he and Mustafa needed to win the ECW World Tag Team Titles because he needed the money to get members of his family out of the bad community they were living in at the time.
- Persona Non Grata: In September 2006 while at an independent wrestling show, he was banned from the 2300 Arena note after harassing a concession stand attendant as well as assaulting a ring crew member. The reason he did this? Because the attendant gave him 7 Up instead of Sprite as he ordered. The ban was lifted in 2012.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: The Gangstas were intended to play upon the racial fears of SMW's very white audience, with the expectation that people would buy tickets hoping to see them lose. It backfired, as they did not turn out to be the box office draws Cornette expected, basically scaring people away from the shows instead.
- Popularity Power: As soon as the opening gunshot in "Natural Born Killaz" hit, you'd see everyone raising their fists above their head in the "X" sign.
- Power Stable: Extreme Revolution in TNA, with Raven, the Sandman, Justin Credible and Perry Saturn.
- Red Baron: "The Original Gangsta".
- Scars Are Forever: Like a lot of wrestlers who frequently bladed in order to bleed during a match, New Jack's forehead had a massive patch of scar tissue from years and years of razor blade cuts.
- Scary Black Man: It was an essential part of his character, and he provided the example for this a few times on this site.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Gangstas abandoned SMW for ECW without really giving notice.
- Shout-Out
- Name taken from the movie New Jack City.
- Often wore T-shirts for musicians such as Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg and Bootsy Collins.
- Silent Scapegoat: When Paul Heyman was trying to get in good with TNN, New Jack matches were rarely seen on ECW TV. When Paul Heyman wanted to shop for a new network, New Jack matches became a regular feature. Jack being Jack, was perfectly aware of what was happening but didn't say much as long as he was being paid.
- Start My Own: The House of Hardcore wrestling school, which later became the Intense Wrestling House of Hardcore school ran by Justin Sane, Jomott, and Kenny "Pinkdust" McGuire. Not to be confused with the House of Hardcore Dreamer later split off from FWE.
- Take That!: The pre-match promo before the Gangstas-Public Enemy card at ECW House Party 96, January 5, 1996. This would be TPE's last before going to WCW, home of their PG-rated equivalent Harlem Heat."Public Enemy, I'm not one to ask to do me a favor, but if you do this, I won't ask another thing from ya'. If you see those pussy bitches Harlem Heat, tell them 'I invented this'. (Fans cheer.) In fact, I asked Santa Claus what he thinks of Sensational Sherri and he said, 'A ho-ho-ho'."
- Unnecessary Roughness: Had a reputation for legitimately beating up opponents who cross him.
- Wolverine Claws: One of his favorite weapons was to use multiple blades attached between his fingers to emulate gigantic metal claws, not unlike the comic book character.
- You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: New Jack was not a respecter of persons. Generally if no wrong was done to him he'd be laid back but if there was anything, be it experience, seniority, fame, connections, size, that allowed you to think you could take liberties with New Jack, think again.
