Hardcore Hall Of Fame April 21 2008

Welcome fans to the fifth installment of the Beefcake Jack Hardcore Hall of Fame. For those who are have not read one of these articles, they are designed to showcase the wrestlers whose specialty is the brutal style we know and love, hardcore wrestling. Be warned that these articles cater to those who know and love hardcore wrestling. If fireballs and barbed wire make you squeamish, then shut this article down right now, because this is not for the faint of heart. As always, if there is a wrestler you would like to see inducted into the Beefcake Jack Hardcore Hall of Fame, or maybe you want to see an entirely different topic covered, you can either PM Beefcake Jack or leave feedback at the end of the article.

At the Beefcake Jack Hardcore Hall of Fame, we search far and wide for the most crazy, sadistic combatants to ever enter the squared circle (or hexagonal circle as TNA made famous) and this individual ranks up there with the best. This week's inductee is The ?Original Gangsta? New Jack. New Jack's journey to hardcore infamy began not with a dream of being a professional wrestler, but instead was a licensed bounty hunter who claims to have four justified homicides in the line of duty on his record. Of course, these claims can only be verified by New Jack himself and contributes to his legacy as a boisterous speaker who tended to say whatever he felt like without any regard to anyone's opinion or reality.

New Jack's career began in with a short stint in United States Wrestling Association where he adopted his in ring name. After that he moved on to Smokey Mountain Wrestling where he teamed with Mustafa Saed; forming The Gangstas. The Gangstas were involved in various controversial angles while in Smokey Mountain Wrestling including an angle where they used affirmative action to get pin falls with a two count, instead of the required three count for a regular victory. They also would cut promos on African American civil rights activist Medgar Evers and use watermelon and fried chicken as props. Their actions and gimmick drew so much heat that the NAACP would picket Smokey Mountain Wrestling venues claiming that no racial violence had occurred in the Tennessee area for years, and they did not want the reputation of gangsters to be put into the Tennessee area. The tag team eventually moved on to Extreme Championship Wrestling where their gimmick continued until Saed left ECW in 1997.

What New Jack is perhaps most famous for is what has been dubbed ?The Mass Transit Incident.? On November 23, 1996 in Revere, Massachusetts, ECW had a house show. On the card it was scheduled to be The Gangstas versus D-Von Dudley and Axl Rotten. For whatever reason, Axl Rotten could not make it to the show. Rotten was replaced with "Mass Transit" Eric Kulas, an untrained seventeen-year-old who convinced Paul Heyman that he was nineteen and had been trained by Killer Kowalski. During the match, D-Von and New Jack brawled outside of the ring, while Mustafa and Transit fought inside the ring. New Jack easily isolated D-Von outside the ring, while Mustafa severely beat Transit with foreign objects such as chairs and toasters. New Jack then joined in the ring and struck Mass Transit over the back with a crutch. During the match, there was a spot that called for Mass Transit to blade, but the kid was too afraid to do it, so he asked New Jack to do it for him. The result was New Jack cutting too deeply and Mass transit was hospitalized and the cut needed nearly 50 stitches to close. As a result of this event, ECW's first pay per view was cancelled and New Jack was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. New Jack was cleared of the charge and the civil suit when it was determined that the spot was planned and Kulas had asked Jack to blade him.

New Jack's most memorable feud in ECW occurred with a group called Da Baldies and their leader, The Spanish Angel over who would be called "King of the Streets". In one match-up, Spanish Angel used New Jack's staple gun to cause massive damage including New Jack taking a staple to the eye. He eventually came back after some recovery time and defeated Spanish Angel.

On March 12, 2000, at the Living Dangerously PPV, New Jack legitimately suffered brain damage and was permanently blinded in his right eye, when he and Vic Grimes, fell off a 15-foot-tall scaffold, missing most of the tables, landing on the concrete floor with New Jack taking the brunt of the damage after Grimes landed on New Jack's head. The stunt at Living Dangerously was New Jack's fault as he pulled Grimes off the scaffolding too early. In a re-match between the two in Xtreme Pro Wrestling, New Jack tossed Grimes off a scaffold forty feet in the air, resulting in Grimes dislocating his ankle after it was caught in the ring ropes. New Jack as said in an interview that he intentionally tried to throw Grimes into a ring post or the ropes to cause serious injury or death due to Grimes boasting about how he hurt New Jack at the Living Dangerously PPV.

New Jack's ring style was one of unadulterated violence and extreme risk, as he would often wheel a grocery cart of weapons to the ring to inflict massive damage on his unfortunate opponents. His 187 finishing move where he jumps of an elevated structure, usually a balcony, with a chair and driving the chair and his elbow through his opponent who is usually placed on a table is what originally drew me into ECW. So here is the latest and one of the most deranged individuals to be nominated into the Beefcake Jack Hardcore Hall of Fame.

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