The Young Bucks Reveal That They Originally Turned Down Tony Khan

Matt and Nick Jackson of The Young Bucks appeared on AEW Unrestricted where they discussed how AEW is shaping up so far. Tony Khan had said on a previous episode of AEW Unrestricted that The Young Bucks were some of the first wrestlers on his original list of people he wanted in AEW. The Young Bucks talked about how they didn't believe Khan's idea at first.

"I was the first person to pick up the phone for Tony," Matt said. "Nobody else believed him. Everyone just thought that this guy was crazy."

"I didn't believe him. He actually reached out to me and [I] said nope," Nick said. "I've heard this story multiple times throughout my career.

"At that time, we were negotiating with literally every company in the world that was involved in wrestling, so this was another thing, and I was like there's no way this is gonna be real because here we have these real companies offering the world to us. At that point, I [was like], 'Matt, let's go with something we know'."

The Young Bucks talked about their situation at the time, noting that they were negotiating with different promotions. The Bucks have stated before that NJPW and ROH did not come out with the offers that they felt they deserve.

"At that time, no one trusted us. We were actually wanting to become writers/bookers to do more than just wrestling at the time," Nick said. "We were like, ”man no one wants us to do this.' New Japan didn't want it. Ring of Honor didn't want it. So we were like, 'this guy wants us from the bat to start this thing'.

"Nobody else could offer me that. Nobody, and nobody could also offer the fact, 'hey we want you to be yourselves'," Matt said. "He's like, 'hey I want you to do your thing that you've done all along.' Keep doing that, not just show up somewhere and like, hey listen we're gonna change this and change that. He was like, 'no, I want you to be The Young Bucks. I want you to be The Elite.' Right there I was like, 'what is the debate here?' So within a month we committed. If we're gonna do this, let's just do it."

Tony Schiavone asked The Young Bucks if AEW has met their expectations. Matt said that it has met expectations and has gone further than that, talking about the power that live TV has in creating new stars, comparing it to how it took them a long time to get their names recognized.

"I think, for me, seeing how effective the television works so quickly. The power of TV, right? There's people who you've never heard of two months ago, and they come out now and get the biggest reaction," Matt said. "For me, it's like wow, that's powerful. Darby Allin or Private Party. There's several others. Orange Cassidy. Luchasaurus. Marko Stunt. It's cool for me because man, I've never seen something happen so quickly in front of my eyes. Man, this is really neat. It works. As far as we came from, in the independent world, it took years to do that. It took us 10 years for people to finally know who we were.

"Even at the end of our run, we'd hit some towns and they'd go, 'this is the first time ever seeing you guys wrestle.' We've been doing this for 16 years or whatever. Where have you been? The power of television. Everyone watches the thing. It's just a powerful platform. For me, that's one big surprise."

Nick talked about how it was easy to do the one-shot pay per views like Double or Nothing and All Out because they had a lot of time to prepare and plan out those shows. He also said that Double or Nothing and the first episode of Dynamite were the most stressed out he's ever been in his career.

"It was easy to do that one-shot pay per views like when we first started Double or Nothing [and] All Out," Nick said. "That was a piece of cake because we probably micro-managed those shows. Now you can't put that much detail into it because it's happening every week."

Matt added, "I remember when we planned for Double or Nothing, it was six months of planning, and we were like, 'how are we ever gonna do this weekly?'

"That and the first TV show was probably the most stressed out I've ever been in my career because I just wanted everything to go well and to hit a home run," Nick said. "Man was I nervous to the point where after the show, I think you did the same thing, we had our match, we went backstage and I literally just laid on the floor. I was that tired. It was mentally and physically just exhausting.

"I stayed in Vegas. My whole family was with me. My kids and my wife left. I stayed in bed until 5 p.m. the next day because I was so tired."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit AEW Unrestricted with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.