There's thought in some circles that Jerome Young may not have ever been completely trained to be a professional wrestler. However, as New Jack, Young was certainly charismatic, and in knowing more than a little bit about creating an engaging on-screen presentation (and always wrestling to the strains of Ice Cube and Dr. Dre's "Natural Born Killaz"), achieved more success and infamy in six years in ECW than most wrestlers could hope to do in the lifetime of a one or two-decade ring career. In 1996, he achieved infamy as during a match with 17-year old untrained wrestler Eric "Mass Transit" Kulas, as in said match, Jack bladed Kulas and he bled profusely. "Fan cam" footage of the event circulated worldwide and just as ECW was preparing for pay-per-view, the wrestler announced as having committed three "justifiable homicides" created a situation that put the promotion's pay-per-view clearance in jeopardy. As well, Jack's the originator of diving from very high places onto tables, as his balcony dives from 1998 onward were the stuff of awe-inspiring fandom. Furthermore, in the year 2000, while wrestling VIc Grimes of Da Baldies, he and Grimes fell from a scaffold and the injuries Jack sustained left him blind and brain damaged. Of course, only in ECW does this allow the fans to love you even more.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
