The Butcher & The Blade Call The Young Bucks "The Michael Jordans Of Pro Wrestling"

The Butcher and The Blade, Andy Williams and Jesse Guilmette, were on a recent episode of the AEW Unrestricted podcast, and during the discussion, the two talked about the night they signed full-time with AEW. They also talked about how they were on a per appearance deal with AEW until Bash at the Beach, where DDP also made his AEW return. Williams said he was traveling with his band, Every Time I Die, during their per appearance deal.

"It was the craziest thing," Williams recalled. "Well, I got a week and half to do the UK tour [and] come back. I missed one show, and then AEW brought us back. It was like the craziest thing. We were just doing per appearance stuff, and then we knew we were doing Bash At The Beach with DDP."

Guilmette added, "We of course thought, we were like, 'oh, maybe that's it.' DDP was the last match, but then it was that night they offered us full-time contracts."

The two also discussed their Falls Count Anywhere match against The Young Bucks that peaked at over one million viewers. Williams and Guilmette praised The Young Bucks, with Williams calling them "the Michael Jordans of pro wrestling."

"That's what I was talking about with art before is you have the opportunity to create something that's artistic. And that was like – to go back to that song 'Theory', it's got so many peaks and valleys," Williams explained. "And the outro was beautiful, so it's kind of like 'Stairway to Heaven' without him getting superkicked and going up a stairway."

"It's so cool; stuff organically just came," Guilmette added. "I think Nick Buck just thought of that. 'I'm just going over to commercial.'

"No joke, doing this, you honestly understand that Nick and Matt are the Michael Jordans of pro wrestling because they can call a match in 15 minutes, go out there, and do that stuff like it's nothing," Williams described. "I've seen it a few times in wrestling, like these bright flashes, but every single time I'm in something with them, everything clicks.

"As we were just walking around, it was just like, 'hey, what do you guys think of this?' And then they're like, 'oh my god, that's great.' And then they elaborate, and they're listening to what you're saying and elaborating on your idea. They're not just taking. They're the Michael Jordans, I think, right now, of professional wrestling.

"The stories that they can pull off – I mean, the first time we wrestled them was just a straight tag match; that was it. I think it was called in like 12 minutes, and we walked away from each other, got it done. I remember Nick came to the back and he was like, 'that was just a great wrestling match. If we had 20 minutes, that would have been one of the best matches.'"

Butcher and Blade took time for Twitter questions, and with both of them being from Buffalo, they were asked if there are any young wrestlers from Buffalo to look out for. Guilmette named a few, and talked about how the Buffalo pro wrestling scene has grown over the years.

"So, we have some trainees. We call them 'The Buffalo Brothers.' They're actually going to be extras on Wednesday and Thursday," Guilmette noted. "You got Puf, there's Kevin Blackwood, Daniel Garcia, 'The Remix' Kevin Bennett, [and] Anthony Nicometi is another talented kid from Buffalo. I don't like to take credit for training these guys from scratch because there's finally a school: Buffalo, NY Grapplers Anonymous.

"Mikey Everynight and Brandon Thurston usually start most of the students, and those kids I named, I kind of helped them advance once they started traveling, and doing shows, and stuff like that. But it's it's cool for me especially when he came along, because my first wrestling match was in 1999. I was in Cincinnati, Ohio to train, and then I came home and I've been wrestling out of Buffalo since like 2006-07. But for a long time, it was just me. I was the only person wrestling and traveling out of Buffalo.

"Things really changed when that school opened, and then when those prospects came about, and then when he started doing it. Then there was a good couple of years, every weekend, we would get a van, we'd all go out and travel for the weekend."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit AEW Unrestricted with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.