10 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring: New Jack

7. Sandman Bled In The Next Match To Take The Heat Off New Jack

After Mass Transit was taken out of the ring by medical personnel, The Sandman reveals that he was the next match, and tried to get the crowd back into the show. He says,  “I was the next match, so I bled like a stuffed pig that night to take a little bit of the heat off New Jack”

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6. Paul Heyman Is A Master Worker

New Jack was given a plea deal for the Mass Transit Incident in court, which would have seen him do five years in prison. His attorney, however, felt that he could win the case. One of the people to take the stand for New Jack’s defence was Paul Heyman, who New Jack feels was a master at working the jury which was made up of five white women and one older African American gentleman. Heyman was asked what Eric Kulas’ father called New Jack after the match, and Heyman replied “the n-word”.

New Jack’s attorney made Heyman say the word in full for the record. According to New Jack, Heyman looked at him and whispered “I’m sorry” before saying the word, which caused a stir among the jurors – which New Jack says was all by design.  “He was working them. He was working the s*** out of them. The judge, the DA, the jurors, He did what he does best and worked them. That’s what he did. He was working them.”

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5. Tiny The Terrible Got Work In WWE Because Of Mass Transit

Despite bringing Mass Transit into ECW, Tiny the Terrible felt betrayed by Eric Kulas because he took the match with New Jack rather than do the showcase match they’d been booked for. Tiny says of the trial, “[I was there explaining] that Eric knew what he was doing. If he can wrestle with us, he can wrestle with a big guy… because at that time [Eric] wasn’t on my side. We weren’t friends. The only person who really wanted me in this was New Jack.”

He says that he only asked one thing of New Jack, which was to get a job working in WWE. He says, New Jack promised me, ‘if I get off Tiny, I swear I will take care of you.” After New Jack was found not guilty, Tiny did find himself on an episode of Monday Night Raw in March 2000, where he and his brother were introduced as opponents for The Rock at WrestleMania by Stephanie McMahon. In the documentary, Tiny believes that this was all down to New Jack.

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4. The Vic Grimes Incident Was Revenge

One of the other big talking points of the episode is the Vic Grimes incident from ECW’s Living Dangerously 2000, where Grimes had second thoughts about taking a bump off a balcony with New Jack. Instead, New Jack essentially dragged him off the balcony, and Grimes landed on his head.

As a result, New Jack broke his leg, cracked open his head, permanently lost sight in his right eye, and claims that he has had headaches every day since and suffers from insomnia. According to New Jack, Vic Grimes never called him to see how he was doing after the Living Dangerously match, and he blames him fully for what happened. “I never recovered from that… Vic, this is all your fault you dumb f***.”

The following year, the two were booked for a scaffold match in XPW, and New Jack reveals that he purchased a stun gun from a pawn shop to use on him. Sandman corroborates this story, saying that New Jack told him what he was going to do before he did it. At the top of the structure, New Jack tasered Grimes to the point where he couldn’t feel his legs and threw him off.

Grimes missed all but two of the tables which were intended to break his fall. D’Lo Brown says that if Grimes missed the concrete floor by just one foot, and New Jack says that’s what he was aiming for. “I wanted him to hit the floor, I just didn’t throw him hard enough. I was trying to throw his ass to the floor.” He says that when he got off the scaffold and spoke to Grimes in the ring, he said “now we’re even”. 

• new jack
• dark side of the ring
• ecw

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