Mass Transit Incident

AJ · 07-27-2009, 07:24 AM

Information Source: Wikipedia.org

Mass Transit incident

The Mass Transit Incident was an infamous event in professional wrestling that occurred at an Extreme Championship Wrestling house show on November 23, 1996 in Revere, Massachusetts.

Match
Eric Kulas, a 350-pound (158.7 kg) 17-year-old boy who held aspirations to become a wrestler, convinced Extreme Championship Wrestling President and booker Paul Heyman to allow him to fill in for Axl Rotten, who was scheduled to work a tag match with D-Von Dudley against The Gangstas (New Jack and Mustapha Saed). Heyman was allegedly unaware of Kulas's age. Kulas performed as Mass Transit.

During the match, D-Von and New Jack brawled outside of the ring, while Mustafa and Transit fought inside the ring. The match was booked as a squash, as New Jack easily isolated D-Von outside the ring, while Mustafa severely beat Transit with objects such as chairs and toasters. New Jack then joined in the ring and struck Mass Transit over the back with a crutch.

The end of the match saw New Jack blading Transit, making him bleed profusely. This sparked a series of events that included New Jack's arrest and the cancellation of Barely Legal, ECW's impending first pay-per-view broadcast.

Repercussions

The incident led to the cancellation of the Barely Legal pay-per-view by pay-per-view provider Request TV, on Christmas Eve, 1996. Heyman, by his own admission in The Rise and Fall of ECW, "begged and pleaded" with Request, and was finally able to convince the company that they had been misled, and were placed back on the schedule on Sunday night, April 13th, 1997, at 9:00 PM.

Eric Kulas and his family later did an interview with Inside Edition that featured footage from the incident, including New Jack cutting him and kayfabe berating him after the match. The segment was biased towards Kulas, showing him as an innocent, unprepared victim, while vilifying ECW, even going so far as to expose New Jack's criminal past. The story was done before the Kulas' launched their lawsuit and so key details of how Kulas actually got into the match had not been made public at that point.

Three years after the incident, Jerome "New Jack" Young was tried on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and was later sued by the Kulas family. After hearing about Eric Kulas' request to New Jack to make him "get color", a jury acquitted Young of all charges in the criminal trial, and he was later declared not liable in the civil trial.

Performers who testified at Jerome Young's trial stated that Eric Kulas was extremely arrogant and demanding backstage prior to the match, and, when told he'd have to bleed as part of the match, Kulas had asked Young to perform the bladejob for him, since he had never done it. It was also testified that Stephen Kulas began berating The Gangstas and screamed, "He's only 17!" and "Take it easy on him, he's just a kid!" when they isolated his son from D-Von Dudley during the match and double-teamed him.

The book The Rise and Fall of ECW also states that as the medic crew carried Kulas out, he was escorted by Tommy Dreamer, who held his hand to comfort him. Passing by the audience, Kulas began giving them the finger in an attempt to continue "being the bad guy".

Authorities later determined that Kulas had lied to Paul Heyman about his age and experience; Kulas claimed to be 19 years of age, but he was really 17 years old. He claimed to have been trained by Killer Kowalski, and Stephen Kulas (his father) even vouched for his son, but Kulas was never formally trained to wrestle. In The Rise and Fall of ECW, Paul Heyman states that Kulas's dubious credentials as a student of Killer Kowalski were endorsed by a then-known midget wrestler, who was with Kulas when he and his father approached the staff about getting Eric in. New Jack later stated in interviews that after he found out about Kulas' duplicity, he didn't have any remorse for what he had done.

Footage

Due to the event being a house show, the match was not televised. However, Extreme Fan Cam was on hand to record the event on a camcorder, and recorded footage was used as evidence for the trial; video footage showed New Jack asking Kulas, "You alright?" This prompted some to consider his actions moments later as part of the show and not representative of his true feelings. After the incident, the Gangstas proceeded to work Kulas over even more, prompting Stephen Kulas to scream, "Ring the ♥♥♥♥ing bell, he's 17!" As medics rushed into the ring to aid Kulas, New Jack grabbed the house microphone and exclaimed, "McMahon, Bischoff, look at this mother♥♥♥♥er! As far as I'm concerned, that fat piece of ♥♥♥♥ can bleed to ♥♥♥♥ing death, because I don't give a ♥♥♥♥." With the help of the Internet, video of the incident has spread among the wrestling community.

The Bottom Line
Eric Kulas died on May 12, 2002,[citation needed] at the age of 22 due to complications from gastric bypass surgery stemming from his weight problems. He had weighed close to 300 pounds when he was 10 years old, and had continued to have weight issues throughout his life

Reply To This

**Save_Me.Y2J** · 07-27-2009, 02:34 PM

Dude, if you're going to copy and paste everything from other sites at least credit them, or it's plagiarism.

kaveman1969 · 07-28-2009, 12:44 AM

Not to mention I posted the video of this months ago in the ECW videos section.

And yes, if you're gonna copy and paste it word for word, you must credit the site you got it from.

LOL, you even left in "citation needed", ha ha!! Wiki much?

**ThomC** · 07-28-2009, 12:48 AM

Originally Posted by kaveman1969

LOL, you even left in "citation needed", ha ha!! Wiki much?

The thread about the Finger Poke of Doom had more than this one did, lol.

**NDX** · 07-28-2009, 01:06 AM

Back on topic (were you ever on topic?), am I the only one who doesn't feel any pity for the guy?

**ThomC** · 07-28-2009, 01:19 AM

Originally Posted by NDX

am I the only one who doesn't feel any pity for the guy?

I don't either. The guy lied about his age, how much training he had, and it all came to bite him in the bite. This was all pretty much his fault.

**Veritas** · 07-28-2009, 02:33 AM

When you put yourself in a stupid situation you have nobody to blame but yourself when you are left with a stupid result.

And AJ - this is your last warning for plagarism - the next one will net you an infraction.

kaveman1969 · 07-29-2009, 11:49 PM

I agree that Kulas was an idiot to do what he did, but New Jack went way over the top with what he did.

Kulas deserved a whoopin' no doubt, but this was too far, IMO.

**NDX** · 07-30-2009, 12:00 AM

From what I heard from an article or documentary once was that the kid moved while Jerome (not gonna say his name, I wanna live!) was blading him and he made it worse than it was. Other than that, the match was on par for what the Gangstas did in the ring, be it with Public Enemy, the Dudley Boys are any other nimrods willing to get into the ring with him.

kaveman1969 · 07-30-2009, 12:15 AM

Yeah, but the fact that he was 17 and had no idea how to work in the ring(even though he said he did, it was obvious he had no idea what was happening) would have kept any sane wrestler from going to the extremes that New Jack did. Of course he's not what I would call sane...at all.

Cutting him was bad enough, but then he hit him full force in the face off the ropes with a toaster, lol.
Than a facebuster with a chair from the top rope.
I don't know if this kid had any idea about how out there New Jack really is, and yes, you don't talk smack and try to call spots in your jobbing match with guys that have been around.
But, obviously you really don't do it with New Jack.
I just think NJ took it too far is all.

**NDX** · 07-30-2009, 12:43 AM

Jerome (still not saying it) beat a 73 year old man about the head a dozen times with a metal bat because he wouldn't go down. Trust me, what he did the Kulas was protecting him. I've seen him do what he did to Kulas to a dozen other opponents. I can't blame Jerome because he was doing what he normally does and the kid just stepped into it because he wanted 15 seconds of fame.

kaveman1969 · 07-30-2009, 05:09 AM

Protecting him my ass. I watched New Jack whip an 80 year old Gypsy Joe with barbed wire in a high school gym with 50 people(if that) attending because Joe wanted him to sell a move.
He also broke Chad Austins leg in a match on purpose for mis-representing his "pull" backstage.
Not to mention New Jack breaking the nose of a concession stand worker because he didn't have his soda of choice available.

And that's just scratching the surface of what a whack job this guy is. He bladed Kulas too deeply on purpose to hurt him.
And then proceeded to try to hurt him legit throughout the match.

He's a thug and always has been. I watched the "Mass Transit Incident" the week after it happened. It was disgusting.

How any promotion after that would let this ass clown even in the building they were doing a show in, much less the ring is beyond me. The guy should be locked up.
And, I didn't even mention the whole Vic Grimes deal.

Eric Kulas was a dumbass, but he had no idea who he had pissed off. He didn't deserve what NJ did to him.

**Joey Idol** · 07-30-2009, 05:13 AM

Originally Posted by kaveman1969

Protecting him my ass. I watched New Jack whip an 80 year old Gypsy Joe with barbed wire in a high school gym with 50 people(if that) attending because Joe wanted him to sell a move.
He also broke Chad Austins leg in a match on purpose for mis-representing his "pull" backstage.
Not to mention New Jack breaking the nose of a concession stand worker because he didn't have his soda of choice available.

And that's just scratching the surface of what a whack job this guy is. He bladed Kulas too deeply on purpose to hurt him.
And then proceeded to try to hurt him legit throughout the match.

He's a thug and always has been. I watched the "Mass Transit Incident" the week after it happened. It was disgusting.

How any promotion after that would let this ass clown even in the building they were doing a show in, much less the ring is beyond me. The guy should be locked up.
And, I didn't even mention the whole Vic Grimes deal.

Eric Kulas was a dumbass, but he had no idea who he had pissed off. He didn't deserve what NJ did to him.

Dont forget the guy he stabbed like 14 times during a match.

cbcyclone · 02-01-2010, 02:06 PM

The kid got what he deserved. It wasn't only that he lied about his age and training, but as a rookie he started running his mouth when they were going over the match in the back telling the veterans what HE wanted to do in the match. As a rookie he should have kept his mouth shut, listened and learned. His breech of locker-room etiquette is why I think New Jack went so hard on him. He's lucky New Jack didn't kill him!

TheFisherman · 09-02-2010, 10:29 PM

Eric Kulas..Screwed..Eric Kulas ..And he can eat himself to death, and know that.

Watching that match again..And I got to say, his Dad should have got more of an ass whooping from New Jack as he did.

**killswitch** · 02-05-2012, 11:46 PM

new jack is one crazy mfer (not mattitude follower) so the kid should of realized that, so both parties are to blame, appearently killer kawolski was in the building that night and paul should of asked him about this wrestler. the kid is also at blame is because he knew he wasnt properly trained and could of been seriously killed or injured.