The Young Bucks Say IMPACT “Tarnished Their Brand” During Their Run

The Young Bucks, Matt and Nick Jackson, recently appeared on SiriusXM’s Busted Open Radio. The AEW Tag Team Champions discussed a number of topics during their time on the show; these included their time in IMPACT, changing their working style and writing their new autobiography.

During the show co-host Tommy Dreamer asked the Bucks why they decided to adopt a more ‘unapologetic’ in-ring and promo style. “At first we weren’t that way” Matt Jackson would respond. “At first we were just like everybody else. We’re the young guys and we’re gonna do whatever you tell us to do. It didn’t seem to work for us, like yeah sure we had good matches, but that was only taking us so far and I think it got to the point where people were kind of walking all over us a little bit.”

Matt would then describe how this initial approach affected The Young Bucks when they joined IMPACT (then TNA) as Generation Me. “We went to IMPACT Wrestling and sort of failed there” Matt stated. “Because we were too afraid to address issues that we might have seen. They [management] wanted us to turn on each other and wrestle each other. We thought that was a terrible idea, but you know what? We were nice guys so we went and we did it.”

“They started kind of tarnishing our brand a little bit” Matt continued. “It got to the point where Nick and I were just like, ‘listen, we have to make a change here because we can see what route this is going. [We can see] what route our career is headed. And we made the decision like ‘if we’re gonna do this? Let’s go do it like we did in the backyard. Let’s go have fun and let’s wrestle with our hair down, and let’s act like there are no rules and let’s be boundless out there.”

Matt would finish by saying how this approach would boost The Young Bucks as a brand and gain them a far bigger following. “As soon as we were unafraid and unapologetic? We decided ‘hey if we’re gonna get heat doing this? Let’s just do it, because what’s the worst that can happen? We’re already broke right now and we’re not making any headway in our career let’s just try this thing. As soon as we kind of dove into that? Those weird, unapologetic characters? People started gravitating towards us.”