The Young Bucks may be one of the most famous tag teams not working in the WWE. The duo of Matt and Nick Jackson were profiled by Vice Sports in an article describing how they almost made it to the WWE with the likes of AJ Styles.
The Young Bucks pointed out that Styles had called them aside and spoken to them about their contracts. At the time, they were unaware of Styles’ eventual move to the WWE. The Young Bucks had already signed a new contract with Ring of Honor (ROH) by then. Matt spoke about the entire situation:
“When A.J. was about to leave, he pulled us aside before anybody knew anything and he asked us about our contracts. At that point, it was December and we had just signed—we signed in November. He's like, 'You did? Ughhh.' The idea was he was going to try and get us to walk out with him and be the guys with him... If we never signed, there's a great chance we could have been walking out on Raw with those guys, I feel."
Matt expressed his desire to make it to the WWE because he believes that the promotion is the big league. He made it clear that WWE was the pit stop if they wanted to become the greatest of all time.
“You have to go there to be the greatest of all time. That's in the eyes of the fans. Unless you're a WWE Hall of Famer eventually, you almost have a wasted career in their eyes. It's sad that it's like that.”
This wasn’t the only time that the Young Bucks came close to signing with the WWE. Back in 2011, Nick and Matt had a tryout for the company but ended up not being signed. They then continued to work and excel in the independent circuit and became one of the best tag teams in the world.
Last January, WWE raided New Japan Pro Wrestling and signed the likes of AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson. Triple H was interested in signing the Young Bucks, as well, to close out the deal, but they were unable to because of their existing contracts.
Send us news tips at [email protected].
