By Geno McGahee
When you watch an interview of the professional wrestler New Jack, it’s easy to like him. He’s charismatic and a storyteller, which is what it takes it to draw a crowd in the world of wrestling. Unfortunately, New Jack was one of the worst things that could have happened to pro wrestling, basically took down a promotion on his own through his antics and nearly killed several people inside of the ring. In DARK SIDE OF THE RING: THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF NEW JACK, we learn about this controversial figure that will be remembered for a long time but not for his in ring talent.
When thinking of New Jack, ECW is the federation that he is most associated with, but we learn of his beginning stages with Jim Cornette. So, we have to sit through Cornette again. He goes on about the tag team “The Gangstas” and their program with the Rock-n-Roll Express in Cornette’s promotion. Throughout the documentary, they show the terrible and criminal acts of New Jack and Cornette finds it hilarious. A guy getting stabbed in the ring was a good time for him. It was disturbing.
After leaving Cornette’s promotion, New Jack enters ECW and one of the scariest moments of his career, the Mass Transit incident. A 17-year-old wannabe wrestler known as “Mass Transit” was foolish enough to get into the ring with New Jack and paid a terrible price. He took out a blade and cut deep into the bone of Transit’s forehead and maimed him for life. Remarkably, that’s not the worst thing he’s done even if it’s the most popular.
Going against Vic Grimes, New Jack would keep hitting him with a stun gun until he lost all feeling in his body. He would then throw him off a scaffold where he didn’t have the ability to even brace for the huge fall. New Jack should have been arrested immediately for this and the promoter should have been as well for allowing this nonsense.
In the indie circuit, New Jack would take out a knife and stab another wrestler over and over again, nearly killing the guy. It was scary and it is all justified by New Jack because he had a bad father when he was young, that apparently died when he was five-years-old. So, in those five years, the dad made him into that monster we saw in pro wrestling.
DARK SIDE OF THE RING: THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF NEW JACK is the most disturbing episode thus far and it’s infuriating at times. The casual way that New Jack talks about his attempted murders is terrible. Watching the promos of New Jack, it’s easy to see why promotions would want to use him, but beyond that, he was just a terrible person with no regard for anyone else and who found joy in badly hurting others. I recommend this episode, but it’s a disturbing one.
