Wrestler Retrospect - The Young Bucks

I figured it was long overdue for a tag team to be featured on Wrestler Retrospect.  (We won’t mention how overdue a Wrestler Retrospect is in general). I thought long and hard about who I wanted to feature for this long overdue Retrospect.  Picking my first tag team is a big deal, so why not go with a tag team that I have grown to love more than I think any other tag team. 

The Young Bucks

I’m going to give a little disclaimer here.  The next thing I say may make you, if you’re a wrestling fan, want to stop reading.  The last line of that last paragraph is the reason.  I said that they’re the tag team that I’ve most grown to love.  That’s because when I first came in contact with the Young Bucks…..I hated the Young Bucks.

Please don’t leave!

In all fairness the reason was because when I first learned of the Young Bucks, they weren’t the Young bucks.  They were called Generation Me.  I think Matt and Nick have gone on record saying that their tenure as Generation Me wasn’t their favorite or best time in wrestling, so I think I’m a little justified there.

I came to know them right around the time that they started to hint at breaking up.  Matt (Max in TNA) was trying to be the standout of the group and pushing his little brother Nick (Jeremy) down.  I remember thinking, like most every X Division wrestler in TNA/Impact, that they’re moves were pretty great, but I just wasn’t too high on them.  I don’t know what it was.  Maybe it was the story when I first came to know them?  Maybe it was the fact that their talents weren’t utilized the way they should have been?  Whatever it was I wasn’t a fan.

I held that opinion for quite a while.  

Years later I began to branch out in wrestling.  I came to find out that WWE wasn’t the whole wrestling world and there were great promotions like New Japan and Ring of Honor.  So while investigating those promotions who do I come across?  That’s right!  The Bucks.

And I still held that old grudge.

Don’t ask me why.  I believe at that point I was better about knowing that just because a character was horrible in one place, in this case TNA, it wasn’t necessarily how the wrestler actually was.  That in the time that I knew them as Generation Me they may have changed and grown or they were being utilized the way they should have been.  I know that this was a big mistake.  Especially in the case of Matt and Nick.

At the time I became reacquainted with them Matt and Nick were on their upward trajectory, if not already at the top, of their popularity.  They were brash.  They were cocky.  They had been accused of “killing the business”.  And they, not so slowly, began winning me over.

I was a fan of the Bullet Club, and in particular Kenny Omega who was one of the Bucks best friends, so I had a lot of exposure to this very different version of Matt and Jeff that I’d come across before.  Whether it was their Youtube show, Being the Elite.  Their in ring shenanigans.  Or the fact that they were excellent wrestlers, which of course I admired, I found myself begrudgingly, at first, starting to like them and looking forward to seeing their matches.  Being associated with my new favorite wrestler Kenny certainly helped me to take another look.

The Bucks are amazing!  Whether it be their knowledge about how to further their stories through their Youtube show.  Being able to back up all their cockiness in the ring.  Or their fantastic acumen as business men, making them super successful in a business where, up to that point, you couldn’t make the kind of money they did without WWE, I couldn’t help but like them now.  Heck, I even bought one or two of their shirts!  I was hooked.

And just when I thought I couldn’t like them any more they did something unthinkable.  Along with the rest of their Elite brethren they decided to use their own funds and put on a wrestling show.  Now I know that doesn’t sound like anything too outlandish, but this threw everyone for a loop.  This was a show on the same level as any of the bigger companies.  The pay-per-view, All In, turned into a fantastic wrestling event.  It had a lot of favorite “Indy” wrestlers and they all worked hard to outdo one another, creating a must see show.  And that must see show that was touted to change “the business” did just that.  It led to The Bucks, Cody, Kenny, and a lot of their friends creating a brand to rival WWE known as All Elite Wrestling.

The two boys that were touted as “Killing the Business” are doing the opposite.  They’re making it stronger in mine, and a lot of other’s, opinion.  Without Nick and Matt I don’t think we’d have what we have today.  Sure ROH and Impact would still be there, and they’re both great companies, but I think their groundbreaking minds helped to shine more light on the indy wrestling scene which led to them being able to help create a company that’s a great alternative as well as a good competitor to WWE.  Who some thought couldn’t be competed with.  I attribute a lot of that to the Young Bucks.