AEW superstars Matt and Nick Jackson, better known as the Young Bucks, recently spoke with Fightful about a variety of topics, including what NJPW and ROH were offering them prior to their creation of AEW. The current tag champions reveal that had the two promotions met their asking offer they would most likely still be working there as they loved traveling the towns and being apart of the culture.
Truthfully, we were happy. We probably would have never left if the right offer came. 100% honestly. I was having the time of my life. We were just waiting for a really good offer because we knew that this was the year where it was time to get paid. We were as hot as we’d ever been and we just did ALL IN, and like you said, the Garden sold out, most people say because of The Elite. So we knew we had a big price tag and when they made their offer it was so (much) low(er) than what we were thinking it was going to be that for the first time ever, Nick and I said to each other, ‘Oh my God, I think we actually have to go out and shop and see what our street value is.’ If they would have just hit a number, a number, we probably wouldn’t have even shopped. We probably would’ve just taken it because we were having so much fun going from town to town, closing every show with our little Being the Elite song and dance at the end. I was a great (and) wonderful time.
Why didn’t New Japan and ROH get together to offer all of us the money that we thought we deserved? I don’t know. In hindsight, they didn’t know that this new project was happening. They didn’t know All Elite Wrestling was going to be a thing. Nobody did, and I think maybe now looking back if they knew that there was this project blooming, then they probably would have offered us anything.
The full interview can be found here.