Young Bucks And Booker T Discuss Their Backstage Incident At 2011 WWE Tryout
On episode 177 of Heated Conversations: Hosted By Booker T, WWE Hall Of Famer Booker T spoke with current IWGP Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks. Among many other things Nick and Matt Jackson talked about enjoying the way their pro wrestling careers are going at present and whether their pro wrestling odysseys would be complete without a WWE stint. Additionally, the Jackson Bros set the record straight regarding their heat with Booker T for sitting on his jacket and not shaking his hand at a WWE tryout several years ago.
According to Nick, The Young Bucks are currently in an enviable position where they are truly masters of their destiny.
"Man, we've been blessed right now." Nick explained, "we're in a position where we're pretty much doing whatever we want and we have the freedom to pretty much wrestle for whatever company we would like to do. And, man, it [has] been a journey to get to the point where we have control of our destiny, so to speak, but, man, we're enjoying life and we're enjoying our career right now."
Matt added that The Young Bucks are not an overnight success story insofar as they have been wrestling for 15 years. Matt shared that the tandem brings in so much money from merchandising alone that they could stop wrestling altogether.
"It [has] been this long journey, but people don't realize we've been doing this for 15 years now and it kind of seems like an overnight success story, but really I wouldn't say we really didn't become successful until 10 years in, right? It took 10 years of just trying our hardest, and scratching, and crawling, and trying to get something going. It took 10 years for us to start making money in wrestling, and, now, we're in a position where wrestling has almost become supplementary money to our real money where we make money in merchandising and we make money in these third party things to where it's like wrestling is kind of like the cherry on top. Like, we don't even need to wrestle at this point. Like, we could kind of chill at home and shoot a YouTube show if we really wanted to." Matt concluded, "so, like, again, like Nick said, we're very blessed to be in the position that we're in and it feels like there's this big boom going on in independent wrestling and we're at the forefront of it."
When asked whether their story would be complete with out a WWE run, Matt replied that never going to WWE may be even better for their lore. Moreover, Matt joked that The Young Bucks could do what WWE Hall Of Famer Sting did.
"I think every wrestler in the world says, 'yeah, I would probably have to complete my career by going to WWE.' But for Nick and I, we're so different, and we're so outside-the-box and we're not traditionalists. Like, how cool of a story would it be if we just never went? Do you know what I mean? And I'm not saying that we're not going to go, but I think our legend would almost grow bigger if we didn't go and if it's as opposed to if we did go, then I think we end up becoming just another tag team that ended up going there. Do you know what I'm saying? But how long did Sting hold out for? Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't know. Who know's man? Like, I can't say. I don't even know how long I'm going to be doing this." Matt laughed, "but maybe I go now, maybe I go later, I do just one match, and they put me in the Hall Of Fame. Who knows?"
On the subject of accidentally sitting on Booker's jacket at a WWE tryout and not shaking hands backstage, Nick admitted that the brothers were just shy and trying to stay out of the way.
"I'll say it right now, being back there at that stage in our career, it's like walking on eggshells." Nick professed, "you don't know who to say 'hi' to. You don't know if you're disrespecting anyone, so we were just trying to be out of the way and with us trying to be out of the way, we ended up not being out of the way because I was the one who was accidentally leaning on [Booker's] jacket, but I had no clue that I was. And when [Booker] came up to me, I was so intimidated and scared to death! I was like, 'oh no! What did I do?'"
Matt recalled that the alleged heat The Young Bucks garnered from the incident with Booker helped get them over.
"We had just left our position at [Impact] Wrestling and we were kind of just, if anything, going for a tryout with the WWE to create a bit of a buzz. I think at that point, we had already known that we were going to sign a contract with Ring Of Honor, so we were kind of just going to say 'hello' and maybe get the internet talking like, 'hey, these [Impact] kids are backstage at WWE. Are they going to go there now?' So we really didn't want to make a big stink out of it, and then, it ended up becoming the biggest story online. And do you know what, Booker? In a way, like, I have to credit you for doing that for us because I look back on it now, and, I think, honestly, our first big break because it was the first time that everybody was talking about us. And, now, everybody knew our names and instead of, like, shying away from it, or, like, defend [ourselves] and basically tell everyone, 'no, we were just shy kids, we were embarrassed, and blah, blah, blah,' we decided, 'hey, let's make this our characters and let's do this on social media, and put it online,' honestly, it's what got us over." Matt said, "so [Booker] helped get us over to the point where people knew who we were!"
Check out the interview here. If you use any of the quotes from this article, please credit Heated Conversations: Hosted By Booker T with a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.