Matt and Nick Jackson, better known as the, The Young Bucks open up about re-signing with AEW.
It was announced ahead of the 200th episode of Dynamite that the Elite (Bucks, Kenny Omega, Adam Page) had all inked new deals with AEW and would be remaining with the promotion for a number of years. The former multi-time tag champions and company EVPs spoke about their massive decision during a recent interview on the Swerve City podcast.
As for how much their contracts were for, Nick compares it to deals that NBA players get.
When we signed it, we were like, this is an NBA-level contract. That’s pretty crazy.
Nick recalls an interaction he had with WWE Hall of Famer Scott Hall on social media years ago, where the Bad Guy encouraged them to aim for seven-figure deals.
Scott Hall, he tweeted me, this was when I would answer fans about criticism. I was immature and said something like, ‘Screw you, I make six figures.’ Scott Hall goes, ‘Bro, think about making seven figures.’ I go, ‘No chance in hell this is possible.’ That was only a few years ago. Things have changed so quick.
Matt later jumps in and says that as the economy of wrestling gets healthier wrestler contracts will only get bigger.
I can see the economy in wrestling getting healthier. With AEW, that’s what happened. All of a sudden, everybody is making big money. Everybody in wrestling. I could see in the next ten years, maybe not as high as those players. TV rights money is getting bigger and bigger.
The brothers then had a back and forth exchange revealing that the Elite did in fact negotiate as a group together and that at times not everyone wanted to stay. Matt in particular even thought about retiring from the sport at one point.
Nick: WWE being hot helps us. Wrestling in general is hot right now.
Matt: The threat of guys from our company going there, it helps the wrestlers.
Nick: I want to see stuff like that. It’s interesting. It’s real life. Who knows who will jump ship.
Matt: We honestly didn’t know. We talked about signing these contracts. A lot of fans, I’m sure are thinking, ‘How unsurprising, the Elite re-signed.’ We didn’t even know if we were going to re-sign. We had no idea. We knew, not just the two of us, Hangman and Kenny, the four of us, we negotiated together, as a team. I don’t know if that’s ever really been done.
Nick: We were going to stick together. All four of we agreed, we’re sticking together.
Matt: The votes did not line up every time. We said majority wins on this. There was a lot of emotions in the last year, as the world knows. One day, this person is voting to leave, this person is voting to go. We were even on the same page the whole time.
Nick: Matt and I [laughs]. There was many times where Matt said, ‘I’ve had enough. I’m ready to retire.’ I had to talk him out of that. I had to talk him out retiring.
Matt: I had been toying with that for a long time. He even told me, ‘let’s do one more big one.’
Nick: It’s fun to fantasize about retirement, so I get it. He’s almost in his 40s. It’s a long-term deal, the fans will see us for a long time.
Check out the Bucks’ full interview below.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)
