By Sean Radican, Torch columnist

RADICAN’S DVD REVIEW SERIES
“BREAKING KAYFABE WITH JEROME YOUNG”
RELEASED BY KAYFABE COMMENTARIES
BY SEAN RADICAN, TORCH COLUMNIST

Jerome Young, who is better known by most people as New Jack, has made a career out of saying shocking things on shoot interviews for a long period of time. His explosive temper and willingness to create controversy on most of his DVD releases has worn thin lately, as it doesn’t seem there’s much material left for him to cover that people are interested in.

As with “Breaking Kayfabe with Sean Waltman,” this release attempts to do something different and bring out the person behind the gimmick of New Jack. The release starts out strong and delivers on the promise of giving viewers a different look at who New Jack is as a person.

The interviewer, Sean Oliver, immediately questions Young about his drinking problem and tells him that he’s a different person to work with when he’s been drinking. Young’s response to Oliver is surprising, as he admits that he is a different person when he drinks and wasn’t aware of his problem until he saw footage of his behavior from the Terry Funk’s edition of Ring Roasts. In great detail, Young describes other substances he was taking while drinking and says it led him to stop drinking, although it appears he’s still drinking and mixing his drinks with pills based on some recent interviews he’s filmed since this release was shot in August of 2011.

A lot of Young’s behavior can be traced back to a terrible childhood where he witnessed his father stab his mother when she returned from work. Listening to Young talk about some of the horrific things he experienced while growing up makes it easier to understand his behavior as an adult.

One of the more heartening parts of this interview is Young talking about one of his teachers in high school that looked out for him when he was living by himself as a teenager, but she couldn’t keep him away from a life of crime, as he saw the people he committed crimes with as his real family.

Later in the release, Young talks about his wrestling career. Of course, the Mass Transit incident is brought up and Oliver tries to get Young to look at it from a number of different angles to see if he feels any remorse for his actions, but Young says he isn’t sorry for what he did on that day. It’s too bad that Young can’t admit any fault for that incident, but he could be protecting the New Jack character in not admitting he did anything wrong.

Young’s discussion on racism is wrestling is very interesting to listen to. He talks about his experiences in Smokey Mountain Wrestling and what Cornette would tell him to say to get the fans angry and fuel their hatred of black people.

Young also has some interesting things to say about the politics in WWE and he names several African-American wrestlers that have gotten their spot in WWE because they were willing to sell out in his view. Interestingly enough, Young mentions that Paul Heyman warned him he’d have to play the political game to get a job in WWE or WCW, but Young maintains he wasn’t willing to sell himself out to get a spot in a major company.

As Oliver tries to find out what touches Young emotionally, he finally hits a soft spot towards the end of the interview when Young talks about his girlfriend that has stuck with him through everything over the years and it’s very surprising to see this side of Young when thinking of all the things he’s said and done in interviews over the years.

Although I liked Waltman’s edition of Breaking Kayfabe more than this release, there’s a lot of value here if you’ve ever wanted to know more about Jerome Young. If you’re looking for the standard New Jack release, you’re not going to find that here. Oliver does a really good job of getting the answers you’re going to want to hear from Young and you will know more about who he is as a person after watching this release. The Breaking Kayfabe series is worth going out of your way to check out, as it’s the most informative series of wrestling interviews being conducted on a regular basis today for DVD/VOD release.

You can purchase this release on DVD or as a VOD at KayfabeCommentaries.com

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