New Jack took extreme hardcore wrestling to a whole new level. To satisfy mid-90s fans' cravings for real-life deadliness, the Atlanta-born pro-wrestler had to wear his gimmick's hat everywhere he went - backstage, courtroom, in white neighborhoods and, of course, in his head.
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To understand how he reflects the most unthinkable of a violent upbringing, you probably need to hear D'Lo Brown, who was, in fact, head of security for The Gangstas during the Smokey Mountain Wrestling (SMW) days. Brown recalls Jack once talked about his abusive father stabbing his wife five times before an entire family.
His in-ring actions were disavowable. They went beyond 'work.' Despite some of his most gruesome backstage tales in professional wrestling history, smart promoters like Jim Cornette and Paul Heyman successfully made him look a lot better than he was. But who was Jack behind the scenes?
10 His Gimmicks Were A Reflection Of Real-World Tension
We've seen footages of him bleeding all over the place, risking career-ending dives off high places, wielding and using weapons theatrically. Beyond his natural charisma, Jack infuses his character with a pulsating level of genuine life tension.
Picture real life in the 1980s Los Angeles - issues of poverty, subcultures gaining mainstream attention, violence, police brutality, you name it. South-Central LA was in the eye of a long-standing debate surrounding the desire to rebel and break free. To impose himself on a predominantly white audience, he had to be savage. Jack and some friends isolated and beat Ricky Morton (of Rock N Roll Express fame) in the middle of the ring with nightsticks as a way of reverse-engineering Rodney King's police beating.
9 SMW Mandated A Disclaimer For Jack's Promos
Jack was an intriguing and controversial figure who infamously called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) “homegrown monkeys.”
The NAACP had called Cornette to censure Jack’s representation on TV. Only for the ECW star to cut a follow-up promo and blast the NAACP on TV. From that point on, SMW started putting up a disclaimer that repudiated the views of The Gangstas.
8 His SMW Heydays Were No Fun
His violent street thug character endeared him to some, yet a large number of a predominantly white SMW crowd found it disgusting. Being called the N-word was no fun for The Original Gangster.
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Yet, he and his tag team partners were motivated enough to stage a delicate balancing act between fans' intolerance and daredevil showmanship. His promos devolved into obscenity-laced rants, it became clear he was no good for the traditional wrestling matches, but that was just him doing his job. On his Dark Side Of The Ring episode, he talks about meeting a kid who rubbed his arm and wanted to see if the black would wear off as his father told him. That suggests how tough it was to excite a biased audience.
7 Erich Kulas Wanted Some Offense Against An Expert Heel
To this day, we narrate the 'Mass Transit Incident' with an effortless cynicism, but who'd have imagined he would have "wasted" Erich Kulas' dad had he gone close enough in the back? Jack had all that going in his head, after the incident which sent shockwaves to the entire wrestling world.
He got in the ring with an amateur wrestler, Erich, who was 17 but lied about his age to work a match. This poor kid wanted to have a great match, better still, bleed. He asked the older veteran if he could backdrop him to the floor or put him through a table. Jack found this disrespectful and beat the living hell out of him. When it was time to get Erich to bleed, he dug deep into his forehead with a surgeons scalpel on a stick. The boy's father tried confronting Jack and could have gotten into more trouble.
6 He Snorted Cocaine In The Locker Room
New Jack has often revealed he would ordinarily get high on drugs, particularly cocaine, before matches. He's said to have quit using the stimulant in 1999, never having to go through a program.
He'd been getting high before the Vic Grimes and Kullas incident, which explains why he would chuck the former off a balcony and wish it was hard enough to miss the ring and hit the floor. Such was the morale of a wrestler who brutalized a 72-year-old man (Gypsy Joe), enjoys hurting people and had no conscience about their pain.
5 He Was A Liability to Some Promoters
Jack wasn't worth much as a wrestler aside wielding some improvised weapon, being hot at promos, and bleeding freely about the place. He was lucky to have good bookers like Cornette and Heyman, who knew how to play to his strengths.
He wasn't a great or reliable enough wrestler to ever become a world heavyweight champion in any promotion. He never tried to pretend to be one either. Even Cornette thinks the World Wrestling Federation (WWE) never got anywhere near him because they were afraid of lawsuits, bad publicity, and how he would hurt someone.
4 Erich Family Tried To Sue Jack
Erich’s family sued in a civil suit for damages from the incident after failing to indict him in criminal court.
Erich died in 2002 from complications due to gastro bypass surgery. Jack heard and didn’t care as it wasn’t his fault, but Cornette put the blame on him and ECW for always pushing hardcore beyond its limit.
3 He Cracked His Skull During The Fall With Grimes
It's, in part, a miracle Grimes didn't die after being thrown off a forty-foot scaffold. Somehow, he only endured a dislocated ankle.
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What we often forget to understand was Jack was out for revenge when they had the rematch in Xtreme Pro Wrestling (XPW). Grimes had caused him permanent damage when he landed on his head during one of his balcony dives a year earlier. Jack cracked his skull. To this day, he is blind in one eye, suffers insomnia and daily headaches.
2 Gets Incited By the N-World
No one expected a wrestler in Jack's mindset to have accepted being addressed by the N-word. How about having to conjure up in-ring actions that are borderline criminal for being called names?
The crowd screaming the N-world at him made him angrier. It got him to unload a barbed wire bat on Joe and was his reason for smashing the hell out of others to win and make money
1 Hunter Red Wanted To Turn His Stabbing Into An Angle
This man got into a fight with Jack in the first place to chase clout. Soon as the bigger wrestler does the unthinkable and the whole world started talking about it, he wanted to launch a career off of the storyline.
Jack claimed he stabbed him nine times until someone called the police, and he got arrested. He was facing jail time, but Hunter visited and agreed to drop the charges if Jack turns the storyline into an angle with him. Jack never met with the wrestler again after dropping charges.
NEXT: The 10 Most Heated Real-Life Backstage Rivalries In ECW History
