Interview With The Young Bucks: The Elite Tag Team

When you talk about the top tag teams in modern professional wrestling, The Young Bucks are right in the conversation.

Brothers Matt and Nick Jackson are quite possibly the biggest double act in the world of wrestling and are easily two of biggest stars never to be signed to WWE.

For the last couple of years, they have gone from strength to strength and have cemented themselves as the top stars on the independent scene. They are merchandise machines - latching on to any trend or slogan and putting their own slant on to make a T-shirt out of it. In addition, the duo have launched their own YouTube channel which has over 58,000 subscribers and along with wrestling buddies Kenny Omega and Adam Cole, they give fans an insight into their life as professional wrestlers travelling the world.

The Bullet Club members do divide opinions, with wrestling traditionalists not a fan of the in-ring style they adopt but it's difficult to deny their obvious qualities as entertainers. That's why they have won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team titles five times, the ROH Tag Team titles twice and the PWG Tag Team titles on four occasions.

Image: WCPW/ The Ringside Perspective

They are flashy and flamboyant, you only have to take a look at their attire to pick that up, but that is their whole act. As they say in the interview conducted with them in an office at the Bowlers Exhibition Centre in Trafford, they are all about having fun and you would struggle to not be entertained by what they do in the squared circle. I for one never get tired of seeing a 'Superkick Party'.

The Bucks were over in the UK recently, for a couple of shows with What Culture Pro Wrestling in what was their debut for the promotion, which has stemmed from the massive online presence that What Culture's wrestling section has built.

WCPW have had former WWE stars such as Alberto Del Rio, Matt Hardy and Kurt Angle on their shows but the Young Bucks more than matched them in terms of star power judging by the raucous reaction they received when they came through the curtain in Manchester on a Monday in March.

Image: WCPW/ The Ringside Perspective

They had the crowd in the palm of their hand from the minute they walked out and there was a loud reaction to every crazy move they pulled off.

SPORTbible managed to chat to the Bucks after their high-octane spot-fest opener for the WCPW Tag Team titles and they were more than happy to talk all-things wrestling - from how they put a match together, their run in Japan, the Bullet Club faction and 'The Elite' sub-group, their crazy schedule and the boom of the British wrestling scene at the moment.

SPORTbible: Great match tonight guys. What went in to the match - how do you put something like that together?

Nick: With twenty minutes of preparation and "Oh crap we gotta hurry!" because we're first, usually we're not.

Matt: We got right off the plane too and they were like "You guys are first" and we were like "Woah, really?".

Nick: Sometimes when you don't have much preparation, the best matches happen because you don't put any thought into it because it was just a fun match, sometimes you overthink things a lot - every wrestler in the world overthinks things.

Matt: We like to have fun, some guys are like "It's going to make me look stupid and weak" and we're like "No make me look stupid, make me look weak - that's great" because in the end I'll look cool, who cares? We just want to have fun. A lot of it is just us bouncing ideas off each other, [Will] Ospreay has a really smart mind for it too so the three of us had a lot of the ideas today and we've done a lot of stuff with him, so we had a lot of throwback spots that we've done with him so it was like "Let's do that again, that worked in Japan so let's do it today". We just have a natural chemistry with him and all those other guys are great, that was fun. We love those style of matches, we like having fun - we want to have a good time.

SPORTbible: Sorry to bring it up but the match was for the WCPW tag team titles and you've currently lost all of the tag team titles. What's going on?

Nick: That stings a little bit more!

Matt: We were talking about this on the way over, January 4th I remember coming out of the [Tokyo] Dome and we were just covered in freakin' gold and now we have nothing left.

Nick: It's kind of cool that it happened in the way where we didn't just lose one, we lost everything so now we gotta build ourselves back up and it gives us something to work for.

Matt: It makes us more interesting because everyone was so used to seeing us win and it was kind of cool seeing a different side of us - "Oh they're losing a lot", maybe we can get some sympathy and they can root for us again because sometimes people get tired when it's like "The Bucks won again, another title", now hopefully we can help get them behind us.

Nick: We got to PWG and the owner was like "What do you guys think?" and it was our choice, we were like "Let's lose, screw it".

SPORTbible: Speaking of PWG, you were there on Saturday and you wrestled over here in Manchester on Monday. How do you guys manage your crazy schedule?

Matt: Here's the thing, we live two years away from Reseda so we had time for a little nap, had breakfast with our kids and then we're off to LA.

Nick: We could have easily slept near LA but we wanted to see our kids for one more minute because our schedule gets crazy for the next two months so any minute we get to have with our families, the better.

Matt: It was LA, we flew to JFK, we stopped there for two hours and got an eight hour flight to Manchester this morning and it was basically "Let's go to the hotel and spray tan before the show"

Nick: We got an hour and a half nap in so that helps. It just becomes a routine, I don't know if you ever get used to it, it's our jobs. Today there was like a 45 minute day so that dragged us down band we were like "Man, it's going to be hard to get back up" but as soon as we heard the audience going nuts it was "Here we go!".

SPORTbible: You were ringside for Kenny Omega vs Kazuchika Okada in the main event at the Tokyo Dome, what was it like having the best seat in the house for that match?

Nick: I don't know if it was fun because we're best friends with Kenny so we know what he's doing in this match.

Matt: We helped him call a lot of the spots in this match that morning because we all think collectively as a team - he's like "What do you think I should do here?", we literally knew everything that was coming and it was like "I hope he lands this!".

Nick: We knew after the backdrop to the floor through to the table and the moonsault over the guard-rail that we still got a couple crazier things but at least he nailed those and he's on fire. Okada's a big-time performer anytime he needs to and Kenny's the same way so it was magic.

SPORTbible: There was one spot where the ring was on a raised platform and the table kind of hovered over it and his back seemed to go right through it.

Nick: After the match I was like "Kenny you gotta start calming down man!".

Matt: We gave him sort of like an intervention so literally he's sowing his gear and we're like "Hey, come here" and he's like "What?" - "Dude you need to chill, you have nothing else to prove! Stop you're gonna hurt yourself" and we're like crazy enough so when he sees us saying it, he's like "The Bucks are telling me I'm going a little crazy, maybe I am!".

SPORTbible: Adam and Kenny, what's going on there?

Nick: That's what kind of happens when there's two alpha-males.

Matt: I think they like each other but at the same time I feel like Kenny thinks like "I'm the best" and Adam's like "No, I'm the best".

Nick: Naturally, there was that case when Kenny and AJ [Styles] were in Bullet Club and at the same time and they were the same way.

Matt: Devitt [Finn Balor] and AJ, it was the same thing.

SPORTbible: Who do you see as the leader of the Bullet Club?

Nick: You know what's funny, we're the real leaders.

Matt: Behind the scenes, we're the ones pulling the strings there.

Nick: No-one has a clue that we've been the leaders since day one, we built the Bullet Club from the ground up and we never got the credit, which is crazy because we did outside, we were never in the main picture as the guys and we'll never got the credit except for the boys. Bullet Club was cool but we branded the Bullet Club, we made it the 'Bullet Club' - we made the t-shirt, we put that business into it and when we realised our royalties weren't right with the Bullet Club stuff, we're like "Okay, the Elite's going to be created and we're going to make that even bigger". We're still building that to make it as big as the Bullet Club is.

Matt: I don't think there's any real 'leader' though, I feel like people say "Who's the leader? You have to have a leader", I don't know - AJ never took credit, Kenny never really took credit.

Nick: Kenny is probably the leader right now.

Matt: Yeah, as of right now Kenny is probably the guy and when AJ was in it he was probably the guy but we never said "You're the leader!" because we all collectively chip in.

Nick: When Ferg [Finn Balor] left, it was kind of like Chad [Karl Anderson] was the leader, like publicly and storyline wise.

Matt: We all work as a team, when we're out there it's like "Everyone pass round the mic, say something" or when we're doing a skit in the back, everyone is doing something, it's not just one guy going "Hey, look at me". No, we're the Bullet Club and I think that's why it's so over. It is what it is today because we're a team and we're all boys. One guy gets to do something cool, go ahead because I'll get a shot of doing something in a second. Every other group has kind of always had that focal guy, Bullet Club is full of stars.

Image: WCPW/ The Ringside Perspective

SPORTbible: Is the plan now to get the Elite brand as big as the Bullet Club brand?

Nick: I think naturally it's becoming that way but it's kind of hard to say because we can't tell Gedo [New Japan's booker] that.

Matt: Everything we do with the Elite, we book that ourselves and we book the YouTube series 'Being The Elite'; that's real stuff but it's also mixed in with some storyline-type stuff so we want to blur the lines as to what's real and what's fake.

Nick: It's hard to get 'The Elite' over because New Japan's against it, they didn't want it to happen.

Matt: The reason why I think they are so against it is because they made an offer for the logos and we're like "No! You already have the Bullet Club".

Nick: They don't want to separate us from the Bullet Club, it's obvious. They try to book away with it but it's impossible because now even in Tokyo they're going nuts for it. We'll always be Bullet Club but it just adds storylines to the Bullet Club; like why can't there be a bit of tension with the Bullet Club?

SPORTbible: You mentioned wanting to merge the junior tag titles with the heavyweight tag titles, has there been any progress with that?

Nick: No, it'll never happen. They are too traditional out there. It'll never happen, I don't know why that is.

Matt: And we've been labelled the 'junior tag heels' so we're not going anywhere. If it was our choice, of course but I don't think so.

Nick: We're on a break with New Japan right now, I think it's they have too many guys overseas right now so they haven't even given us a return date so we have no clue when it is and Matt and I are sitting back like "They're gonna miss us".

Matt: We were just getting to the point where we were getting really over like how we are over here [the UK] and the US, in Japan it takes longer for some reason but we finally got it. As soon as we get it, they're like "Alright go away for five months".

Nick: We're under an ROH contract, with the dates it's hard to make it work because we have to be at ROH shows because they pay us way too much money, we can't miss those shows. With Japan, they don't like working around certain things like that.

Matt: We'll be back though, I heard rumours about July. I know we're doing the Long Beach show.

Nick: It is a nice little break; the fans will miss us and the booking will miss us. We've got a lot of international stuff to make up for it.

Image: WCPW/ The Ringside Perspective

SPORTbible: Just finally, you're going to be doing quite a bit of UK stuff, including a match with British Strong Style. What do you think of those guys?

Matt: Great, I've only heard good things about them.

Nick: The UK, man, its exploded and it's crazy.

Matt: We were just talking to Doug Williams and we haven't seen him since TNA.

Nick: We haven't seen Doug for seven years and it was cool to see him. We're here on a Monday and there's what, twelve to fifteen hundred people at least?

Matt: Doug had to move to Orlando because there was no wrestling here back then but now he doesn't need to go anywhere and is wrestling twenty shows a month.

Nick: It's great for wrestling, it's awesome. I'm happy to see it.

Words by Josh Lawless

Topics: The Young Bucks, Tag team wrestling, WCPW, What Culture Pro Wrestling, ROH, New Japan, Wrestling