All language subtitles for 0203 Dark Side of the Ring

New Jack is in the belt,
getting 20 feet up!

Jack could turn the ring
into a riot scene. Quick.

Whoa! Holy (bleep)! (Bleep)!

-But that was his job.
-He fucked some people's lives up.

In a world where the lines
of fiction and reality are blurred,

no one pushed the boundaries
further than Jerome Young,

aka, New Jack.

I'm not selling out to y'all!
You don't like me, to hell with ya!

The line in wrestling between...

cooperation and physical assault
is blurred.

You can only go so far

without your opponent
knowing it's coming.

But how far is too far?

Fuck you, man.
You know what you did. Period.

And what happens when a wrestler
lost in his character

is set loose in a world
that rewards extreme violence?

New Jack!

You want to talk
that big boy shit to me?

I will dare you to come to my face
and say that shit. I will dare you!

I eat your ass alive. I dare you.

Far beyond the world of elbow drops
and headlocks

lies the underground realm
of extreme hardcore wrestling,

where fans' appetite
for real-life brutality is endless.

When audiences thought
they'd seen it all,

New Jack took it
to a whole new level.

Many of his performances
bordered on criminal,

and some crossed that line.

Today, we examine
one of wrestling's most provocative

and controversial characters,

to reveal
the man behind the monster,

and the legacy
he has left in his wake.

Okay, so, for someone who is totally
not familiar, who is New Jack?

I could not swear in court
that anything New Jack ever told me

about his background was true.
I've heard he was a bounty hunter.

I've heard he had a number of
justifiable homicides to his credit.

The way he talks, walks,
carries himself.

This brother is real.

Just imagine a badass,
big African-American dude

slinging drugs
on one of the hardest streets in,

like, Harlem, you know?

If you fuck with him,
he will kill you.

Maybe not kill,
but he will fuck you up.

He's that tough motherfucker, dude.

I went to a movie, "New Jack City".
Just getting into wrestling then.

When I heard the name New Jack,
I started playing it with my head,

like hearing fans chanting,
"New Jack! New Jack! New Jack!"

How did you come into wrestling?
Who taught you the ropes?

Ray Candy.

I got in the ring with him,
and he was like, "Let me train you."

And he told me something one day
that fucked my head up so bad...

"You got to create something
that you've never seen before."

I said,
"What kind of mind fuck is that?"

You want to create a character?
Create something you've never seen.

When I saw Jack come out,

he picked up the energy in the room,
and people reacted to him.

I'm Jim Cornette, and in the mid-90s,

I ran a wrestling promotion
called Smoky Mountain Wrestling.

We wanted in on the Atlanta market.
We needed a heel.

When I saw New Jack,
he could project that aura of menace.

Like, straight-up motherfuckers
from the goddamn hood.

He had an intensity on his face.

He gets the microphone
and talks to the people.

Talking a mile a minute,
getting people riled up.

I don't care nothing about
these hillbillies not liking me!

Get in this ring
and I'll beat you like I own you.

If Eddie Murphy was a bad-guy
wrestler instead of a comedian?

New Jack.
He could talk nonstop,

He could be entertaining.
But he'd make you hate him.

Beyond his natural charisma,
New Jack infuses his character

with a piercing level
of real-world tension.

LA was hot at the time,

because of the Rodney King thing.

OJ just killed everybody in LA.
South central LA was on the map.

And the whole gimmick,
the raider gear, the gold chain,

I took that
and put it into my character.

The audience
was predominantly white,

predominantly redneck and hillbilly.

All you had to say was, "New Jack,
go out, piss some white people off."

The rest was up to him,
and it was gold. It was genius.

I'd like to send a special shout-out
to my homeboy, OJ Simpson.

Keep up the good work, baby.
Two less we got to worry about.

You understand?
Keep up the good work!

"I want these motherfuckers
to believe what I'm doing.

I want them to believe
what I'm saying is fucking real."

To enhance
New Jack's cutting-edge character,

he is paired
with the perfect enforcer,

another Smoky Mountain recruit
named Mustafa Saed.

He didn't say much, but he looked
like he would kill somebody.

I said, a guy that can talk
like this New Jack...

I'm here and I'm gonna be here
until I feel like I wanna leave.

And a guy that looks like Mustafa
would be a great tag team.

He said, "What's your team name?"
I said, "We don't have a name".

So then he said,
"What about The Gangsters?"

I said, "What about The Gangstas,
with an "as" on the end?"

Just picture a hardass movie
in the hood somewhere, dude.

They're the baddest dudes there.

I'm the Sandman,
I've been a professional wrestler

since 1989.

My dude will play you
in a game of pool,

and when I lose,
hit you over the head with the stick.

That's me, in a nutshell.

The Gangstas had a lot of heat
in them white neighborhoods.

The Gangstas were a group
of young, angry, black men

telling every white person...

what every other black person
wanted to say but couldn't.

You little Caucasian white devil.
I told you that I would get you.

The next time I get to put my hands
around that little pink of yours,

I'm gonna choke you.

My name is D'Lo Brown.
I'm a 26-year pro.

God, that sounds old.

My role in The Gangstas was,
I was their head of security.

In reality, the bump guy.

The Gangstas would lose no heat,
but you could beat me.

There goes D'Lo Brown. Hey, wait!

New Jack would stir people up
so much.

None of his stuff was written.
Often I stood there,

and I was like, "Ooh."

You wish I was like
some old, some old...

watermelon,
chicken bone-suckin' black folk!

Check those promos out.
When Mustafa's next to him going,

"Na-na",
that's what he was doing all day.

Know what I'm saying,
nothing but rednecks up here!

That wasn't just the interview,
that was Mustafa.

Mustafa's crazy, bro.

The dude was rolling pencil shavings
in one of those blunt things,

and he wanted me to smoke it.
"I'm good."

Was Mustafa smoking
pencil shavings?

I plead the fifth.

"Jack, this is the new shit."
He had pencil shavings.

He had some shit he found growing
on the side of the building.

I said, "If you smoke that shit,
it's gonna haunt you one day."

"Nah, man, this is some good shit.
You gotta try."

So, we're in the hotel.
I heard a knock.

Somebody said,
"Mustafa's fighting the cops."

So, we dropped everything.

They had him handcuffed, face down.
He's blowing snot on the floor.

And this is what Mustafa was saying,
"You wanna fuck me, don't you?

I know you wanna fuck me."

I'm like, "What is wrong with you?"

He's like, "Nah, they wanna fuck me."

I said,
"Mustafa, you lost your mind."

The Gangstas
had embraced the idea that,

"I'm going to go out there
and be a menace to society."

One night, we did a show.
I'd been to the dentist,

and my mouth was so sore...
I could hardly talk.

So we went to Walmart
and I bought a white baby doll.

And I had a rope tied like a noose.

I got in the middle of the ring,
and held the baby doll up.

And they was like,
"Get the fuck out of here."

Jack had everyone
so mad at The Gangstas,

Hitler could have been a babyface.

I pissed people the fuck off.

We got so much hate, to the point
where these motherfuckers

was like, "Kill them niggas.

We gonna kill them fucking niggers."

Unleashing their unfiltered vision
of the times,

The Gangstas are the hottest
villains in the territory.

I wanted to get The Gangstas
into the title picture.

They had to attack the champions,
The Rock 'n' Roll Express.

Now, this is Ricky and Robert.

They been around forever,
they been there and done it.

Taking controversy to a new level,

they decide to recreate the 1992
police beating of Rodney King.

But in their version,
the roles are reversed.

Ricky Morton is floored.

All of a sudden,
The Gangstas and their posse,

Jack brought everybody.

They circled Ricky in the ring

and he's bleeding and he's looking
to fans in the front row, "Help me".

And they beat him with night sticks.

Afterwards, all the white people
went out in the back,

and they was waiting for us
with bricks and sticks.

We got behind the cops,
they turned their lights on,

and escorted us out of town.

When I saw that,
I knew we were doing our job.

The NAACP in Knoxville called,
"This isn't good representation."

So, Jack took that and he said...

Some negroes down in Knoxville...

calling up the NAACP or something,
they don't like me.

I'll say it again,

to hell
with them homegrown monkeys.

Right? So, from that point on,
we started putting up a disclaimer,

You thought we, maybe we was...
cotton pickers? Wrong!

Maybe you thought you had
some homegrown negroes? Wrong!

Would you say that that period...
was that fun?

No. To have somebody...

calling you a nigger,
I ain't got damn used to that shit.

I wasn't gonna try to get used to it.

The Gangstas were a microcosm
of what was up in society.

And you drop us
in the middle of the south,

the n-word was thrown around
like you'd say hello.

It was uncomfortable, but it proved
we were touching that nerve.

It's a pretty strange concept, yes.
"I want someone to hurl slurs at me."

A little boy came up to me one day.
"Can I shake your hand?"

And instead, he rubbed my arm
and looked at his hand.

I said, "Why'd you do that?"

He said, "I'm sorry.
My dad told me,

you rub a black person's arm,
it'll rub off on you."

And I was just like,
"You little shit!"

As their provocative routine
runs its course,

The Gangstas jump at an offer
from a larger wrestling outfit, ECW.

ECW was
Extreme Championship Wrestling.

Paul Hayman wanted it to be...

the 1990s wrestling answer
to the grunge music movement.

It would be gritty and violent,
and they'd blur a lot of lines.

I'd been talking to Paul E. at ECW.
I had never heard of ECW.

They invited me to come up there,
and I told Cornette,

"Paul E. offered me a deal,

and a lot of goddamn money."
And he was pissed about it.

I hated that we parted
on bad terms,

but they couldn't go
any further with us.

Everything about ECW
was both more violent and more real.

The guys started the trend
of really hitting each with stuff.

I'm like,
"Welcome home, motherfucker."

In June 1995,

The Gangstas leave the hostile
crowds of Smoky Mountain,

and join the eclectic crew of
Philadelphia's wildly popular ECW.

I told you, boy,
we whooped their ass again!

When we got to ECW, we fit right in.

New Jack is on a mission here
tonight in Atlanta!

And it was just like,
"Fuck, we love this shit."

Dude, we're clicking hard

and we know we're the hottest thing
on the planet by '96, '97.

I was sent to meet New Jack
at the hotel when he first came up.

The first ECW guy he met.

He got out of the car
and I liked him.

He had swagger.
He was like, "Don't fuck with me"

I'm like, "Oh, he'll fit right in."

We were one big family.

It's Tommy Dreamer, RVD, Taz,
Sabu, you know, New Jack.

Heading up this crew of misfits
is promoter, Paul Hayman.

He was the mad scientist.

He was everything.
The writer.

He was
the Steven Spielberg of all of it.

That dude was super brilliant.

All our careers were jumping.

I think New Jack got in there

and he had to be the most...
extreme guy in any situation,

-but there were no limits.
-I'd come out with weapons...

Dive off shit.
Fighting out in the audience,

going through chairs
and knocking down shit.

It was blood and guts
every goddamn night.

I truly feel that Jack was so violent
because of the way he grew up.

His childhood, his upbringing.
That plays a part in who he is.

My childhood was fucked.

I had a daddy that was an alcoholic.
He hated my mom.

One night, she came home
from work, walked in the door.

He pulled out a knife,
and he stabbed her.

Five times, he stabbed her.

In front of the whole family.
He didn't give a fuck.

A few months later,
she was like, "I'm leaving".

She picked me up,
tried to put me in the car.

He shot her in the back of the leg.
This is what I grew up around.

And I'm like, "You wonder
why sometimes I flip the fuck out?"

-What were your teen years like?
-It's like... any other kid.

I've heard you talk
about your first roberry.

Yeah.

I was on this kick like,
"I'm gonna rob a store."

It was at a 7/11
down the street from where I live,

walking distance from where I live.

My mom had a little .22.
I snuck it out of the room.

I went down the street,
and I'm sitting there like...

What do I say?

Do I say, "This is a robbery
give me the money"?

What to do I say?
Know what I mean?

I was in 10th grade.

So I was like, okay.

I'll go in there and say,
"Give me the money."

So I walked in, nobody there.
"Give me the money!"

And the bitch handed me the money,
I was like...

"Don't call the cops, I'll kill you."

Right? And she gave me the money
and I ran out.

I was doing that shit every week.

From the 10th grade to 11th grade
to 12th grade, when I got caught.

One time,
they had a camera in there.

And cops came to school
and they got me.

They offer me, they call it Zip-six.
Zero to six years.

They gave me
what they call a 24 month contract.

So I had to do 2 years in jail
before I got out.

To see this kinda shit that I saw...
Somebody go in the shower,

next thing,
they were being raped.

And even I was one that was like,
sometimes I wake up in the morning,

"I'll kill motherfuckers
if they say anything to me."

Once I got off parole,
I started going to school.

New Jack's outlet for violence

has taken him to new heights
in ECW.

But on November 23rd, 1996,

a chance encounter
with a novice wrestler

is about to send shockwaves
through the entire wrestling world.

Can you tell me the story
of the Mass Transit Incident?

I knew it was coming.
He was 17. He told he was 21.

And, he had a little person with him.

Listen, New Jack, I'm not gonna lie,
he was intimidating.

He was always presenting
the image that he was sinister.

Hi, my name is Tiny The Terrible.

I was, basically,
one of those midget wrestlers

that wanted to be considered
not really as a midget wrestler.

Just as a wrestler that was short.

-So tell us what we're watching?
-Jerry Springer.

Twin Terrors.
Over 52 million viewed this episode.

Jerry gave me the first opportunity
to really speak on a nation level.

-Did people recognize you after?
-Yeah.

-What was that like?
-Oh, great, man.

That's how I got
most pussy I got.

-I'm used to good-looking women.
-That's true.

I got ego, too,
'cause I've been on TV, you know.

New Jack... if you went off-script,
he'd make you pay for it.

If you're gonna cut somebody
all the fuck up on their first match,

that don't make no sense.

And that's basically
what happened with...

with the Erich Kulas situation.

Teenage wrestler Erich Kulas
calls himself Mass Transit.

Dressed as a bus driver,

his matches
with Tiny and his brother

attract the attention of ECW.

He'd seen the tape of Erich Kulas
and my brother wrestling.

Paul Hayman couldn't believe
a big guy could work with midgets.

The three men are asked to appear
at an upcoming match

in Revere, Massachusetts.

The best wrestling is not being able
to tell between fiction and reality.

That was one of
the big appeals of ECW.

-Stu Kaplan.
-John Donovan.

We did security for the show.

I was upstairs. I had a walkie talkie
and someone said,

"Some guys here for the show."
I saw Erich Kulas come in.

I had no idea who he was,
and I knew everybody.

And they went into
the back of the locker room.

That was the last time I saw Erich
until he came out for the match.

No one knows that Erich has lied
about his age, claiming to be 21.

In reality,
he's a 17-year-old minor.

Axl Rotten didn't show up.
He had a family emergency.

So Paul E. was like,
"He gets a tryout."

He decided to cut us out.

Erich just cut us off
and just went for self.

An untrained teenager,
who claimed to be a pro wrestler

and had probably wrestled
some local shows, shows up.

They needed somebody
for New Jack to beat up.

So they said, "Okay".
First mistake.

So, Paul E. was like,
"Jack, y'all go for seven minutes.

Do what you want
to the kid."

I said, "Paul E.,
what I'm going to do to him,

people are gonna be talking
about this 10 years from now."

Well, it's been 20.
We're still talking about it.

By end of 1996, New Jack has taken
his controversial career

to dangerous new heights
in the violent world of ECW.

Now, a last-minute change
has landed him in the ring

with novice wrestler, Erich Kulas.

We're at the Wonderland dog track,

where the ECW... famous Gangsta
Erich Kulas incident happened.

We got here early,
three hours before the show.

But there were still people here.
"ECW, ECW!" I mean, I can feel it.

I'm getting goosebumps now.

So the untrained teenager
with maybe three local matches

is gonna wrestle New Jack.

I saw Erich coming out.
"Wow, that was the guy with his dad!

He got on the show."

Erich Kulas is paired up
with D-Von Dudley,

replacing Axl Rotten
in their match with The Gangstas.

Mass Transit, this big teenager,
went up to New Jack

and told him he wanted
to get some offense in.

He was like, "Can I do this?

Drop you out of the ring,
push you through a table?"

And I said, "Fuck no."

That's the most disrespectful thing
that you can do as a wrestler,

to come to a vet
and tell him what you want to do.

So that's what pissed Jack off!

Now it makes sense,
why Jack was like,

"I'm gonna cut this motherfucker."

He wanted me to cut him.

He'd already pissed me off,
so I was like,

"Fine by me."
I didn't try to kill him,

but I wanted to go close to death.

Not only did the kid want
to get hits in,

but he wanted to have a great match.
To bleed.

There are ways to do it.

There's the hard way --
you agree with your opponent

that he'll punch you in the eyebrow
or in some place to bust you open.

There's also the easy way:

you take a common razor blade,
something from around the house,

you trim it,
wrap it in some tape,

and then you keep it on your wrist
or in your waistband.

It was a common gimmick.

The blade was never intended
to be an exacto knife.

I had been getting high all day.

I mean, I was high as fuck.

We told D-Von, "We'll put you out
of the ring. Don't get back in".

D-Von didn't get touched,
didn't get hit.

Everything was focused around Erich
and New Jack giving it to Erich.

I started beating on him.

I was beating him with everything.

So, when it came time
for us to get color,

I had a surgical scalpel
about that long.

-So I just sliced him.
-I'm standing there.

I could see over my shoulder,
they need paramedics,

but New Jack
was firing up the crowd.

I hope this fat piece of shit
bleeds to fucking death!

At that point, I'm like,
"Let's get him out."

I knew we were part of history.

A defiant middle finger from Erich
seems to suggest he's okay.

But everyone can see
that's not the case,

especially his family.

His father tried to get in.

I wouldn't let him in the room
or near New Jack.

-DId Erich's father say stuff to you?
-Called me a nigger.

"You fucking nigger,
you stabbed my son!"

You know, we was off-camera,
all bets was off.

I'd killed that old man.

I went backstage, but I was like,
"Was it worth it?"

And he said, "They fucked me up."

I was the next match.
So I bled like a stuck pig that night

to take a little bit of the heat
off of New Jack.

We had an argument.
Erich's father: "Where you going?"

I said, "You're giving us a ride."

"I'm not giving you a ride back."

I said, "Yes, you are,

or we'll be fighting again
in this motherfucker."

He got in the van,
went to the hospital.

And I remember him taking
the bandage off in the car,

pulling his hair up and looking at it
in the fucking mirror.

Erich received 50 stitches, and says
he never wants to wrestle again.

I have no feeling from here to here.

An indent in my head
where the nerves died.

It changed him.

He was depressed
and all that other shit. So...

The underground world
of hardcore wrestling

is exposed
to unprecedented national attention,

as New Jack is charged
with assault and battery.

I asked my attorney,
"Are they offering me a deal?"

He said, "They want five years."

I was like, "I don't know."

He said,
"I think I can beat this case."

The brutalization
of teenage wrestler, Erich Kulas,

has created a media frenzy

and exposed the shocking world
of hardcore wrestling.

Now, a court will decide if New Jack
must answer for the assault

with prison time.

You don't want to give your side?

-I wanna go to court.
-Understand:

it was a six-jury panel.

One 80-year-old black guy
and five white women.

He was nodding out.
I was like, "That's my savior."

I'm like, "Stay awake, motherfucker.
You're my savior!" You know?

What was your role in the trial?

Explaining how Erich
knew what he was doing.

If he can wrestle with us,
he can wrestle with a big guy.

It's our view that he knew
what would happen.

He was prepared.
He knew about the props.

'Cause, at that time,
Kulas wasn't on my side.

We weren't friends. The only person
that wanted me in this was Jack.

I said, "Jack, it's up to you.
This is what I want.

I want to work in WWE".

And Jack promised me, "If I get off,
I swear I will take care of you".

They had Paul E. on the stand.

The DA asked, "What did Mr. Kulas
call Jerome Young?"

But he was like,
"He called him the n-word".

The DA said,
"For the record, say it."

Paul E. looked at me.
"Jack, I'm sorry".

He said, "He called him a nigger".

The old juror, the black dude,
he sat up. He was like...

And the white women was like...

I was laughing so hard,
I'm sitting there, like...

He was working the motherfuckers.

He was working the shit out of
the judge, the DA, the jurors.

He did his best work.
That's what he did, he was working.

When the jury learns Erich
lied about his age and experience,

the balance shifts
in New Jack's favor.

They deliberated for that day,
came back the next day.

-They found me not guilty.
-And I ended up working for WWE,

doing promos and shit with Shane,
Big Show and Triple H.

Stephanie McMahon
is introducing me and my partner

as The Twin Towers
to go against The Rock.

-What was it like for you?
-Oh, fucking great, dude.

There's me. There's my partner
that could do the eyebrow.

And this was fresh after Erich Kulas.

So it was like, New Jack,
I don't know what the hell he did,

but there was my spot right there.

Do you remember
how Erich Kulas passed?

I didn't even know, really,
until, like, years later.

I forgot how it went, but people say,
"Yo, you know, Erich died."

After failing in criminal court,

Erich's family tries to sue New Jack

for damages caused by the incident.
But in 2002,

he dies from complications
from gastric bypass surgery.

And what was your reaction
when he passed away?

I didn't give a fuck.
It wasn't my fault.

I heard about it.
I was like, "Oh, well."

I have to indict New Jack for this.
He went too far.

But also, the image of ECW
allowed guys to go way too far

and think that nothing would happen.

The Mass Transit incident
has set a dangerous precedent,

and it's New Jack who has opened
the door to a lawless new era.

New Jack started trying
to go farther and farther,

not only with the blood
and the edginess of the content

but also
the spectacular bumps and falls.

I was the only one
that snorted coke.

I mean, it was like a boost.

You know what I mean?
If I get high, I can go get high.

And I was snorting every night.

Once you've jumped off
a 10-foot balcony, what's next?

Jump off a 15-foot balcony,
and then a 20-foot balcony.

And at some point,
there's no way this can end well.

-You have any favorite dives?
-The one people always talk about...

me and Big Grimes.

Imagine Humpty Dumpty, with arms
and legs, as a pro wrestler.

That's kind of how he was shaped.

Vic Grimes wanted to be run over
with cars.

To be hit with things.
He thought that was wrestling.

In 2000, Vic Grimes is booked
to wrestle New Jack

in a match with a dangerous climax.

We climbed up on the scaffold...

It shook.
Vic was like, "I can't do it."

Now, we're on Pay Per View.
There's no time for error.

I said, "Let's go on three."
He said, "I can't."

I said, "Fuck you, we going on 3."
I said, "1, 2, 3," and I pulled him.

He did this flip,
and his back... landed against

the side of my head.
I cracked my skull.

I've never recovered from that.
I broke my leg.

I lost my sight in my right eye,
to this day.

I get headaches every day.

I have insomnia,
'cause I cracked my skull.

"Vic, this is all your fault,
you dumb fuck."

That's one of Jack's rules:
don't chicken out.

Jack's the kinda guy that if you...

you break those rules,
he'll probably break you.

A year after the horrific fall
that cracked open his skull,

New Jack agrees to a rematch
with Vic, with even higher stakes.

What Grimes doesn't know
is that New Jack is out for revenge.

Before the match,
I went to a pawn shop

and bought a stun gun.

Yeah, I was there when New Jack--

And he told me he'd do it,
so...

What did he want to happen?

He told me
he'd tase the motherfucker.

In the locker room, he came up to me.
I was ready to kill him.

He said, "I'm sorry."
I said, "You didn't even call me."

I said, "Almost a year,
you didn't even call me

to see how the fuck I was doing."

This is the highest elevation
of any match

in the history of our sport!

I was high.

Y'know?
High as a motherfucker.

So I tased him.
I tased the shit out of him.

He was like,
"I can't feel my legs."

I said, "You ain't gonna need 'em.
Bombs away!"

Vic was a foot from missing the ring,
which would've killed him.

I wanted him to hit the floor.
I didn't throw hard enough.

I was trying to throw his ass
to the fucking floor.

Don't piss Jack off.
A fight's over when he says it is.

-I can't believe he didn't die.
-It's the luck of fools

that this guy wasn't paralyzed.

And Jack wasn't particularly
broken up about it.

I climbed off the fucking scaffold
and I went to him.

"Now we're even, you fuck".

Vic Grimes is going to need
medical attention.

Could you have got him
for attempted murder? Maybe.

Throwing someone off of scaffolding
is right on that line.

Incredibly, Grimes' worst injury
is a dislocated ankle.

Once again, Jack pushes hardcore
beyond its limits.

But the demand
for this kind of extreme action

is only getting more intense.

And now, he's having to compete

against a new generation
of hardcore wrestlers,

willing to give and receive
disturbing levels of punishment.

So it became about one-upmanship.
"Can you top this?"

And he had to go further and further

to keep that position,
and then it became his calling card.

Was there a match
where you went too far?

Well, I can name a few of them,
but I'll say...

probably Gypsy Joe.

Oh, Lord.

-Hold on.
-I looked at how old he was,

but then I forgot
when we got in the ring.

In 2003,

New Jack faces 72-year-old
journeyman Gypsy Joe,

who promotes himself
as a man impervious to pain.

The problem... is no-one's bothered
to tell New Jack.

The promoter was thinking,
"This will be today's hardcore icon

and the old pro from yesteryear
who's tougher than two-dollar steak."

So the night of the show,
Joe comes up.

He said, "Listen to me, kid.
I can teach you a lot."

I said, "Are you talking to me?"
We didn't talk no more.

I went into the ring.
Joe comes in the ring.

And Gypsy Joe, as per his gimmick,
wasn't selling New Jack's stuff

because you really have to hit Joe

to make him go down and register,
because he's so tough.

So then,
I got listening to these fans.

"Go home, nigger! Fucking nigger!"
And then, I was pissed.

I beat Joe like motherfucker
owed me money.

I beat the shit out of him.

Outside the ring, I got a bat,

-had barbed wire wrapped around it.
-No! No!

Hit him in the head three times.

Jack just said, "Fuck this old man."

I threw a row of chairs on him.

And they got louder,
"Go home, nigger!"

The more they said it,
the more pissed I got.

I beat the shit
out of a 100-year-old.

The match never should have
happened in the first place.

With New Jack's escalating violence
comes a higher level of risk,

and not just for those
willing to fight him.

Was New Jack
a liability for promoters?

I think some people
saw him as one, but...

Yes, some promoters would, yeah.
Absolutely.

New Jack never made it to the WWE.
They'd never touch him.

He was too controversial.

They were afraid of lawsuits
or bad publicity.

Or that he'd hurt somebody.

With the mainstream appeal
of hardcore now in decline,

New Jack is resigned to working
for much smaller outfits,

some of whom
can barely muster a crowd.

Despite this,
New Jack isn't slowing down,

and he crosses the line again
in 2004.

I've had many trials in my life

Yet I keep trying to do what's right

We bonded really, really well.

I'm MWW,
independent recording artist now.

But I was a wrestler-slash-promoter.

When he hit Florida

and came through Jacksonville,
he stayed at my house.

Jack is comical.
If you get to know him,

he's a comedian and a great cook.

-What would he cook?
-Spaghetti.

But he enjoys making sure
that everybody's happy.

Out of the fire

-Wow.
-That's one of mine.

The federation
I used to own and promote

was Thunder Wrestling Federation.

Thunder was gaining momentum
and Jack had been there a few times.

New Jack's opponent
is William Jason Lane,

wrestling under the name
"Hunter Red."

That night, Red had asked me
if he could wrestle Jack.

When you wrestle an icon,
it moves you a little bit.

It's on your résumé.
And I said, "Well, Red,

that's a different ball game."

Hunter Red comes up and he's like,
"What you wanna do?"

"We can talk in the back."

He said, "Let's talk now".

I said, "No, we'll go in the back
and talk about it."

So I laid it out.
I said, "This is what we'll do."

And as I talked,
he got up and said,

"We'll do whatever the fuck.
Fuck it."

I'm looking around like,
what the fuck?

I said, "Who put him up to this?"
I said, "I will see you in the ring.

What the fuck ever we do,
just whatever."

Something was troubling Red,
the actual...

reality of wrestling New Jack,

I think, it kind of set in.

Once again, I'd been snorting coke.

I was high as a motherfucker,
drinking vodka,...

like I'm doing now.

I had a claw, a Wolverine claw,
that had these three blades on it.

One of the blades had broke off.
I had it in my pocket.

When the match began,

Red picked New Jack up
and sat him in a corner.

And he punched me.

My nose is big enough.

I don't need help
to get it bigger.

Then he punched me, again,
in the nose.

This guy is really hitting Jack hard,

and the way Jack
moves across this ring,

hooking him and talking to him.

I said, "You trying to handle me?
You really trying to handle me?"

Jack's reaching in his pocket
for something.

He's cutting him!
Oh, he's stabbing this mother...

Run! Oh, shit...

It's never good
when you open a wrestling video

with a shot of a stage
and an empty bandstand.

Oh, good Lord.

What is there, 30 people there?

So the guy comes in the ring.
They lock up.

Okay, already,
he's pissing New Jack off.

And he pulled a knife
out of his fucking pants

and is now stabbing this guy,
who's trying to get away.

What the fuck is going on here?
But is he actually stabbing this guy?

Look at that woman in shock,

and the kid, a 10-year-old kid
is sitting there going...

This is a first, in 125 years
of wrestling history.

This does not do our public image
a world of good.

The line in wrestling
between cooperation

and felonious assault
is also blurred.

I always looked at it this way:
If two guys agree to something,

and everything stays
in those parameters,

they are working together.

If something happens that is
egregiously outside the parameters,

such as "just take a knife
and slash a guy's face",

that's crossed the line
from cooperation to assault.

I stuck him like nine times.

On the news, they said 16.

I said, "No, it was nine."
I counted. It was nine.

For the second time in his career,

New Jack's violence
has led to legal trouble,

and the evidence against him
is impossible to ignore.

The guy that called the cops said,
"A stabbing at the Ramada Inn.

A black guy with camouflage on,
stabbing a white guy."

So that's how they treated it.

The cops came in, guns drawn.
"Get on the floor!"

I remember a cop asking Jack,
"Why do you hate white people?"

And I just looked at him.
But I thought that was inappropriate.

They put Red on a stretcher
and Jack left in a police car.

New Jack is charged
with aggravated battery,

and faces up to 15 years
in a Florida prison.

They took me to jail.
Hunter Red comes up to the jail.

I'm like, "Why are you here?"
He said, "I'll drop the charges.

You take me on the road
and we can make an angle out of this:

'Hunter Red is looking for New Jack.
He's out for revenge.'

We could do
the whole Florida circuit."

I said, "Drop the charges first."
I sat in jail for three weeks.

He went and dropped the charges.

I went home, put my shit in storage
and I left Florida.

That was the last time
I talked to him.

I mean, it was on the news
and my mom saw it.

And she was like, "Oh, God,
I can't believe

you stabbed somebody.

You should be ashamed."
I go, "Bitch, it was a show.

leave me alone,"
you know what I mean?

We never got along.

She didn't fucking back me
when I was wrestling.

I'm like,
"Bitch, I got action figures.

How many of your friends' sons
got action figures?"

My dad died when I was five.
He died when I was five.

But, I remember the fucked up shit
he did before he died.

And I'm like, you wonder why
sometimes I flip the fuck out?

Because I was raised in a family
that was fucking retarded.

So I'm like, "If I show up for a show
and I go out there and do my thing,

be grateful I ain't attacking you,"
you know what I mean?

Jack was too much into his gimmick.

He carried that
wherever the fuck he was.

There was no Jerome Young.
It was just New Jack.

New Jack can't benefit
from this reputation anymore.

His active career
is pretty much over with.

It's more of an albatross.

I was New Jack
when I came in the door,

and I'm still New Jack.

And so then, who is Jerome Young?

That's a difficult question.
The line is blurred.

I don't know if there's a difference.
Did I ever even meet Jerome Young?

I don't think I wanted to know,

'cause here was a guy
even I kinda believed in.

Best part about it is the legend.

It's probably gonna be
bigger than the person.

How tales get taller and taller
and bigger and badder as time goes?

He perfected his craft.

Took it to the highest level
possible.

Because he knew
it would leave an impression.

New Jack leaves behind
a complicated legacy.

Pioneering, unrepentant,
but above all, without compromise.

I don't need nobody cheering for me.
And partner, I don't need you.

I believe people like that
shouldn't get away with it.

New Jack ain't gonna like
what I'm saying about it.

Fuck you, you know what you did.
You fucked up innocent people.

Erich Kulas' family declined
to participate in this documentary,

stating it was too traumatic
to revisit the circumstances

and aftermath of the incident
in Revere, Massachusetts.

Let's say one day,
they make a movie about your life.

What would be
the end of the New Jack movie?

I'm sitting in a wheelchair,
snorting coke.

Just getting high as a motherfucker
and it'd be, like, "The End."

I'd be like, "Thank you, bitches!"

Subtitles translated by:
Rianne Verdad