An emotional Paul Heyman used the last two and a half minutes of Talking Smack to pay tribute to Jerome Young, the man formerly known as New Jack who passed away on Friday.
Heyman said that his hope was that New Jack told his wife that he wanted to see his own obituary and told her to call a bunch of people and tell them that he died and then make some money off merchandise.
“Because that’s what New Jack would do,” Heyman said with his voice breaking. “And apparently it’s not so, which sucks.”
Heyman noted that when someone passes away, WWE does tribute videos and show a lot of footage of that person, but they can’t do that with New Jack because there’s not a lot of footage they can use.
“He was the most non-PG performer in sports entertainment history because New Jack was a gangster,” Heyman said.
Heyman added that 20 years ago, if you saw New Jack perform live – with the unauthorized music playing – or see him cut a promo, you understood how real he was.
“Jerome Young was quite an individual. And deep in his heart he was every bit of New Jack that he could offer you,” Heyman continued. “Wish you all a most-extreme weekend…gangsta style.”
Paul Heyman delivers a beautiful eulogy for New Jack on #TalkingSmack https://t.co/EThLQZMXd1 pic.twitter.com/aSehN4blkC
— Cageside Seats (@cagesideseats) May 15, 2021