Dear Young Bucks, Please Don’t Go

Dear Matt & Nick Jackson (The Young Bucks),

Hello, best tag team on this planet, I’m Brian Denny, and I know you don’t know me but I needed to write this letter to you two. I hope it finds you both well while you’re main-eventing all over the Indie scene, having successful tours in Japan, and being a top-selling brand at Hot Topic. A little info about myself: I’ve never begged for anything in my life, not for food, not for a girl’s phone number or even a job, but I’m going to beg you to do this one thing: Don’t go to the WWE.

I know that sounds crazy! “Don’t go to the WWE.” Who says that?! It’s the biggest wrestling (I guess I’ll call it that) company in the world! Anyone and everyone who competes inside a wrestling ring should want to one day have a chance to perform there! To have a chance to work a match on a WrestleMania card. To have a chance to get fired by Vince McMahon. But not you guys. You guys are different. You guys don’t need that company. I can already see how a Young Bucks in WWE run would play out in my head. So I’ll spare you guys the disaster of having to live it out in real life. Here:

They’d announce the signing on social media with a cool picture of you guys standing alongside Triple H with the NXT logo in the background. He’d be smiling doing the “too sweet” hand gesture and you guys would be doing it, too. The photo caption would be some corny-as-fuck Triple H quote. It would be a great photo, don’t get me wrong, but it would be one of the few times you guys would smile. WWE would want to “TakeOver” the trademark of the Young Bucks name, of Nick and Matt Jackson, and since you won’t give it to them, Vince McMahon would change your names to a city in California, trying to be witty and also stick it to the Internet fan. Maybe to Tom and Harry Carson or Steve and Mike Fontana, and they’d bill you from Florida, just to be dicks. What about your amazing tag team moves you guys do now? We can forget about the “Meltzer Driver” and the Superkick Party, those would be long gone. They’d make you guys do some lame double team finisher and name it “Fault Line” (again playing off the California thing) or something equally as stupid. You might get lucky and get a cool entrance theme or special entrances on big NXT shows but once you get to the main roster you can forget about those because Kevin Dunn doesn’t like them. I can’t even promise a good entrance theme.

You’d probably spend six months in NXT. You’d get a chance to tear down the house at an NXT TakeOver event, maybe two. Leaving you to think that there’s a chance your matches might be able to be that good on the main roster (Spoiler alert: they’ll never come close because on the main roster you’ll have your time for your matches cut in half). Then you’d work a couple of house shows, probably on Smackdown, with half filled arenas. Or maybe you’d work some RAW house shows where the arenas will be three-quarters filled but only because John Cena was working them. Then you’ll finally get word that you’re coming up to the main roster, the “big” break.

You’ll think it’s the big break, but then you get to the main roster and it’s a program with the Hardy Boyz. Except, it’s the not the “broken”, cool, relevant in 2017/18 Hardy Boyz, it’s the tired nostalgia run “woken” Hardy Boyz where the pop isn’t half as loud as it once was. So then you’re only getting a rub from the tired Hardy Boyz run and it doesn’t nearly give you what out-of-touch Vince McMahon thinks it should so he thinks it’s your fault. What happens next? Well, eventually, you win the tag titles, I hope, but I can’t say for certain, but let’s say you do. Maybe it’s the red strap or the blue strap, who knows at this point, but chances are they were held by a tag team that was thrown together that got no reaction, so it matters nada. Now I don’t want to be the “glass is always empty” guy, so let’s just pretend that you finally get that match with The Revival. Is it any good? As good as it can be under the WWE logo, in 8 minutes on a pre-show, where you can’t use the #FTR slogan. So what’s the point? There isn’t one. It’s better off being a dream match that we never get, therefore, in our heads, it’s a ***** match. I guess I am the “glass is half empty” guy after all. Then, in McMahon’s “last ditch effort” to sabotage your run, they split you guys up. Sad. It doesn’t work and that’s the end.

Now, I’m not trying to hold you guys back. I want you guys to make as much money as possible doing what it is you love to do. I just fear that a run in the WWE will not be what you love. It might drain all the love you have for the business out of you so by the time you guys get out of your deals, you’re spent. You want nothing to do with the wrestling business and you want to be as far away from it as possible. Not to mention the run cripples your Indie appeal and you’re forced to take bookings at half your current rate (which might still be a great pay day, but who wants to work for less?) And for what? To be able to say you got a direct deposit from WWE, Inc.? To end up in their “Alumni” section on WWE.com? The freedom that not being in the WWE brings is enough to make any creative person happy. In today’s WWE, the talent isn’t allowed to be creative. Hell, the only creative thing they had going for themselves (Talking Smack) wasn’t even allowed to be.

You guys are the best thing going in pro wrestling right now and have been for a long while. That’s pro wrestling and not sports entertainment. Let those other guys sports entertain. You guys do the wrestling stuff, the killing the business stuff, that you’re so great at. While this letter may not mean much to you guys, I had to write it because I know I’m not alone in thinking this.

Sincerely,

Brian Denny, a pro wrestling fan, a Young Bucks fan

P.S. The same goes for Kenny Omega, can you let him know, too?

P.S.S. I almost forgot that they would probably take away your right to use the “too sweet” hand gesture after that photo with Triple H. Maybe, maybe not, but why risk it? Too sweet me, bros!

(Note: You can follow Brian Denny on Twitter @bdenny411 and let him know what you think)