“Journey with me into the mind of a maniac…”
Those are the first lyrics in the Dr Dre/Ice Cube song “Natural Born Killaz” and a not inappropriate description of this look at the career of New Jack. The man who was born Jerome Young and would go on to use the song as his entrance theme in ECW has had a career built on controversy and chaos. In the one hour of match footage and interviews, it becomes apparent that, not only will there never be another “New Jack,” there never can be another New Jack… for so very many reasons.
Legendary wrestling promoter, Jim Cornette, describes the New Jack character starting in his Smoky Mountain Wrestling promotion as a racial tension lightning rod that legitimately required a disclaimer on the screen during his promos. During this time, New Jack’s “Gangtas” faction included D’Lo Brown, one of wrestling’s most celebrated journeymen (and a certified public accountant,) who looks back on that time with both affection and dread. ECW original, The Sandman, is a guy known for splitting open his own forehead with a beer can before each match and even he is self-admittedly nowhere near the level of New Jack’s intensity. “He always had to be the most extreme guy in the room.”
There have been plenty of documented incidents of violence done with legitimate malice in professional wrestling but few individuals have had as many questionable (and not so questionable) incidents of note. New Jack was brought up on criminal charges when a seventeen-year-old rookie wrestler who lied about his age and experience received fifty stitches in the “The Mass Transit Incident.”
ECW wrestler Vic Grimes severely injured New Jack when his hesitation caused a bad fall that resulted in a cracked skull and brain damage. The next time they shared the ring, Grimes was shoved off of a forty-foot-high scaffold and past the tables set up to break his fall with New Jack saying his intention was to kill him. With a baseball bat and a chain, he legitimately assaulted “Gypsy Joe,” a journeyman wrestler approaching seventy years old. He found himself arrested again after stabbing another wrestler in the middle of a match for not showing proper respect.
None of the mayhem and mystique surrounding New Jack are as fascinating, though, as the man himself. His forehead looks to be about 80-90% scar tissue. When asked to write the end of his life’s story, it involves cocaine. His response to news of death and serious injury of his peers/opponents/victims is usually along the lines of “Oh well.” And, in a rarity for professional wrestling, it is thoroughly believable.
Jim Cornette explains the thin line between cooperative performance and felonious assault as blurring quickly in the wrestling world. He also explains that he can’t attest to anything about New Jack’s background as either true or false. Was he the child of an abusive father who shot and stabbed his mother? Was he a former bounty hunter with four justifiable homicides? When Vic Grimes fell from the scaffolding, why wasn’t New Jack investigated after his boasts of attempted murder?
If pro wrestling is full of half-truths and sleight-of-hand, then New Jack could be the most elaborate character actor of all time, a legitimate criminal, or anything in-between. Even if it’s mostly façade (and one would truly doubt that after watching,) then New Jack is still the first, last, and only of his kind.
Kurt Vonnegut said, “Be careful what you pretend to be because we are what we pretend to be.” Sometimes you are what you are and only pretend to pretend.
