Last week on May 14th wrestling lost one of its most controversial figures. Jerome Young better known as “New Jack” passed away at the age of 58, because of a heart attack. New Jack became a national star in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and did not hold back on the Extreme. Young grew up in the Atlanta area had a hard upbringing. He broke into the wrestling business in 1992 after being trained by the legendary Ray Candy. Young started out in USWA in Memphis where he first began using the name New Jack.
New Jack migrated from USWA to the North Georgia Wrestling Alliance where he won their Heavyweight Championship. In the NGWA he met Mustafa Saed and they formed the tag team The Gangstas. The team too their act to Jim Cornette’s Smoky Mountain Wrestling in 1994 where they started to gain some national attention. Their wild promos led by New Jack made them top heels in the promotion.
In 1995 after catching the attention of ECW boss Paul Heyman the Gangstas moved up north to Philadelphia. In ECW they began to feud with Public Enemy until Rocco Rock and Johnny Grunge made their way to WCW. They would go on to have feuds with the Samoan Gangstas and The Eliminators. New Jack and Mustafa would go on to win the tag team titles in ECW.
After that Jack would go on to have a solo run. His time was never slow on controversy, the biggest being the “Mass Transit Incident” that was detailed on the show “Darkside of The Ring”. Erich Kulas was an aspiring pro wrestler who lied his way into appearing on an ECW show with New Jack and wanted to get bladed and it all went bad from there.
After ECW ended in 2001, New Jack was not one of the wrestlers who transitioned to the WWE. He worked mostly indies and became part of the fan show circuit until his death this year. Can be seen in many shoot interviews across various platforms, and one this is for sure that man is a good storyteller and can entertain whenever a microphone is in his face. New Jack was one of a kind.
