The Young Bucks Talk About The Free Agent Process In Wrestling

In an interview with Ring Rust Radio, Nick and Matt Jackson spoke about being free agents in wrestling and ROH Global Wars. Here are highlights:

Matt Jackson on ROH Global Wars: “Yea. We’ve got my mom and dad coming too, they’ve never been to Chicago, and so it’s going to be a really special night, just in that aspect. It’s always fun to perform in front of our parents, who are just so proud of us. They are the biggest Young Bucks supporters in the world, so having them out there in the audience will be extra cool. Also, another element of the match is we’re teaming up with guys, a tag team that we have never really teamed with, with Guerillas of Destiny, GOD. That’ll be interesting.”

Nick Jackson on the free agent process: “Oh man that’s a good question. We knew that we were pretty hot when we started getting feelers out from pretty much every company that exists. So we pretty much said to ourselves, ‘Hey, let’s accept an offer,’ because at this point in time, we were pretty burnt out doing the independent schedule that was pretty much nuts. We were doing triple shots literally every weekend. Flying out of Los Angeles Thursday night, getting home Monday morning. So it wasn’t much time at home at all so we figured, ‘Hey, let’s sign somewhere where we could make some good money, but in the meantime spend the time with our families, you know?’ With that being said, Ring of Honor came up to us with a deal that we pretty much couldn’t refuse. They also said, ‘Hey, we know New Japan is about part of your career. We’ll keep that on the table as well as PWG.’ That was pretty much set in stone, we said, ‘Alright, this feels like what’s right.’ It was the best offer financially that we were given, that was on the table, so we figured let’s try it out for a year and see what’s up. We’re what, five months in?

And we were fearful of signing anywhere because we’re known as the do-it-yourself Young Bucks. We’re the punk rock band that goes from small town to small town. So if we’re going to sign any type of exclusive deal, it’s almost like you’re going corporate. So we were afraid people were going to think we weren’t staying true to our word and stuff, but you know what? I feel like we’re not even under a deal, because ROH is so good to us and we have so much freedom to express ourselves, so I still feel we are the same Young Bucks. I was afraid we were going to cool off, and if anything, I feel we’ve actually gotten even hotter, and I think it has to do with us having more time to put into our brand. To be home and to refresh and not to be so burnt out on the road. I mean, we’re still on the road a lot, don’t get me wrong, but were not having to go from town to town to town. Sometimes we’re only doing one show a weekend. Like Matt says, we can focus now on three companies, not doing 20.”

Matt Jackson on fans enjoying them embracing tag team wrestling: “It’s not the fact that Nick and I are both singles wrestlers and then we happen to be a team. No. Everything we do is cohesive. It’s a tandem. It’s from the way we look, to the way we walk to the ring, to the way our attitudes are, to the way that everything happens in the ring. We set up the psychology in our hot tags. Everything we do is geared towards tag team wrestling. I’m not out there trying to get myself over; I’m out there trying to get The Young Bucks over, and same goes for Nick. We never looked at ourselves as ‘Oh, one day we’ll break up and one of us will be a singles star.’ That’s never going to happen. We’re never going to split up. I’ll tell you right now, I have no interest in being a singles wrestler and neither does Nick. Maybe we are where we are in tag wrestling because we both know that this is what we want to do, and there’s nothing else that we want to do. And our entire attitude, everything we do in wrestling is geared towards tag team wrestling.”