ECW Alumnus, Hardcore Icon New Jack Passes Away At 58

The wrestling world has lost one of its most controversial personalities, as Jerome “New Jack” Young has passed away. PWInsider reports that Young passed away after suffering a heart attack in North Carolina, and that they were informed of the news by Young’s wife Jennifer. He was 58 years old.

New Jack will be most strongly remembered for his time in ECW, though he made a name for himself as a lightning rod for controversy throughout the US. Born in Greensboro, North Carolina, Young had a very difficult childhood and got into wrestling in the early 1990s. Trained under Ray Candy, he debuted in USWA and took the name of New Jack, inspired by the film New Jack City. He would work for USWA and North Georgia Wrestling Alliance, winning the latter promotion’s Heavyweight Championship, before he would go on to Smoky Mountain Wrestling where he formed the tag team The Gangstas with Mustafa Saed. New Jack’s time in SMU saw him cut controversial interviews in which he would bait the audiences, which led to their becoming well-known and an incredibly hot heel tag team.

The team would move to ECW in 1995, where their hardcore ring style and controversial personas fit right in. Jack held the ECW Tag Team Titles with Mustafa twice and then with John Kronus as “The Gangstanators” once after Mustafa and Perry Saturn left ECW in 1997. Jack became particularly known for his balcony dives, which as his scary moment at 2000’s Living Dangerously proved didn’t always go in his favor.

He was also known, far less fondly, for the infamous “Mass Transit” incident in November of 1996 when Axl Rotten wasn’t able to make a show and was replaced in a tag match against the Gangstas with Eric Kulas, who claimed that he wrestled as “Mass Transit.” In truth, Kulas was 17 and untrained, but had convinced Paul Heyman that he was 21 and had been trained by Killer Kowalski. Kulas asked New Jack to blade him but it went bad and led to Kulas’ hospitalization. Kulas sued New Jack and ECW, and Jack was charged with aggravated assault but was acquitted. Kulas lost the case.

New Jack would go on to work the indies after ECW declared bankrupcy and was bought by WWE, and had stints with TNA, CZW, XPW, and more. He had retired in 2013, but came back to the ring for matches starting in 2016. His life was the subject of a season two Dark Side of the Ring episode, and he was featured in a segment of Barry Blaustin’s 1999 wrestling documentary Beyond the Mat in which he famously proclaimed to have four justifiable homicides on his record.

On behalf of 411, our condolences to the family, friends, and fans of New Jack. One way or another, wrestling would not be the same without him.