Rolling Stone published an extensive interview with the Young Bucks this week.
Regarding their desire to work for WWE:
Nick Jackson:
“The schedule’s just crazy and there’s a lot of elements to that. There’s never been a scenario where they called us or pitched an idea or any of that. The only communications we’ve really ever had was a few years ago. They wanted us to come in for a tryout and at that time we felt like we were above tryouts, because we felt like we had enough work for them to watch and we didn’t have to go there to do that. That was the last time we really communicated with them about coming to work there, but now I don’t know. It would have to be a situation we’d be comfortable with and a situation we really wanted to do, because we’re in control of our characters now and we’re having a blast and we like our schedule. We’re very happy.”
Matt Jackson:
“It’s funny, because when you’re a teenager your goal is to go there, and you don’t care what the circumstances would be, you just want to go there. But now, when you mature as an adult and a performer and you’ve built these characters and personalities for years and you do it yourself like Nick and I have, now we’d have to hand over the keys. And that’s terrifying. It’s like, ‘Here’s all this hard work that we have done, now please, please don’t ruin it.’ That’s difficult and that’s a gamble.
“A lot of guys like to gamble, and it’s their dream to go there and strike gold. I feel like we’ve already struck gold. Back in the day, the dream was to go there to maybe make money, get a t-shirt in a retail shop and maybe get a toy or have your own show. We’re already doing all of those things.
“I really want to have a case to go there, but we’ve built a case to not go there so strongly at this point that it would take a lot of money, some type of guarantee in our creative that we’d be doing something interesting and they’d take care of our characters. Who’s to say one person doesn’t like us there and we go there, and their goal is just to get us there to bury us? Because I’ve heard horror stories.
“That’ll always be in the back of our minds: ‘Is it worth the gamble?’ Maybe it’s one of those things later in life where Nick and I will be like, ‘That’s the one thing we haven’t done. Let’s go there and do it just so people can finally get it out of their system.’ Or maybe we never will, or maybe we’ll go in a year. I don’t know. Pro wrestling is so interesting; the landscape is so interesting.
“What’s so funny is that, only in pro wrestling, can a company threaten legal action on you, but then probably offer you a job a year later. Of course (WWE) is interested. They’d be interested in just taking us just so New Japan and ROH doesn’t have us. In no other business would that be a thing.”
On whether seeing other successful Independent wrestlers struggle within the confines of the WWE system serves as a deterrent for them joining:
Nick:
“Oh, for sure. What it does is it makes us feel like we’re making the right decision currently, because we’re happy, we’re not mad, we still love professional wrestling, we’re not burnt out, our families are happy, we’re healthy. When we see things like that, we feel like we’re making the right decision. Maybe it’s good that we didn’t take a risk a few years ago and stuff like that.
“At the same time, we have friends like AJ Styles who just became World Champion again and we know how much money he’s making. There’s always that golden spoon over there, but for us as a tag team we know that some things like that would never be achievable. It would really just be a fake dream and it wouldn’t be something that we’d be interested in. I never got into the business wanting to main event a WrestleMania. I wanted to do cool things with my brother. I hate when most wrestlers say when you get into wrestling, your main goal should be to main event WrestleMania. No, it shouldn’t be, because that’s fake. No one does that. Only a certain amount of people do that. It’s like winning the lottery. If you get into wrestling thinking that you might be able to do that, let me cut your dream off right away and tell you it’s not happening.”
Matt:
“I always just wanted to jump off a ladder and put one of the Hardy’s through a table – and I already did that. I always just wanted to be the Hardy Boyz or just have really kick-a** tag matches with my brother and make a living. I’m living my dream currently and so many people are looking at (pro wrestling) from a different perspective than Nick and I.
“All this time, you’re chasing this dream when some of that time you’ve been chasing it you’ve been living it all along. I’ve already been living my dream for the last fifteen years now we’ve been wrestling, specifically the last five where we’ve actually been making money doing this and I’ve been able to buy a house and cars and be able to hook up my family financially. It’s a goal that we’ve already reached and now it’s like everything else is like extra credit, you know?”
The Bucks also talked about their t-shirt sales, former WWE champions they would like to wrestle alongside or against and much more. To check it out, visit RollingStone.com
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