ECW legend “New Jack” Jerome Young passed away yesterday at the age of 58. Former ECW owner Paul Heyman closed out Talking Smack this week with a touching tribute to the man.
“I was asked before the show went on the air if I would like to say a few words about the passing of ECW original New Jack,” Heyman said. “And I avoid eulogies as best I can because anytime I’m faced with death, the first thing that comes to mind is ‘hey, this sucks and there’s no good spin that I can put on it.'”
Paul Heyman Pays Tribute To New Jack
“When I heard that New Jack had passed away, my hope was that New Jack had turned to his wife and said ‘hey, I’d like to read my own obituary, call a bunch of people and tell them that I died and then everybody is going to make a big fuss about it and then I’ll read about my own life.’ And then at some point this weekend, they’d sell a bunch of t-shirts and he’d sit there and go ‘got ya’ because that’s what New Jack would do. And apparently it’s not so, which sucks.”
“Usually when we would pay tribute to somebody here in WWE we’d show a lot of footage of that person and to be blunt, we can’t show you a lot of footage of New Jack because he was the most non-PG performer in sports entertainment history. Because New Jack was a gangsta. And everybody who was a fan of ECW, that came to see ECW, who watched ECW knew that fact from the moment his music hit and no, we never had rights to use his music. Why? Because as an organization, we were gangstas and New Jack was the most gangsta of all of us gangstas.”
“That’s over 20 years ago. Anybody that ever saw New Jack perform live, or heard him cut a promo, understood just how real he was. Jerome Young was quite an individual. Deep in his heart he was every bit of New Jack that he could offer you.”
“I wish you all a most extreme weekend, gangsta style.”
.@HeymanHustle pays tribute to the late Jerome Young, better known as New Jack in ECW, on #TalkingSmack pic.twitter.com/6jXg2agCm9
— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) May 15, 2021
Tributes To New Jack
Below are some notable tributes to New Jack that have been made online:
