For years, pro wrestling fans have been clamoring for WWE to sign The Young Bucks, Matt and Nick Jackson. In 2015 and 2016, the tag team even made a sport out of stringing fans along, faking jumping ship to the company. Now they’re locked up under contract to Ring of Honor and New Japan through 2017, but it turns out we almost got the Young Bucks in WWE at the beginning of this year.
Vice Sports has posted a new, in-depth feature on the Bucks that is definitely worth your time, but one section that caught our eye was this tidbit about how current WWE Champion AJ Styles tried to take the Jackson brothers with him when he departed New Japan in early 2016 with Karl Anderson and Luke (née Doc) Gallows in tow. Alas, because Styles didn’t have that conversation just a few weeks earlier, we’ve now missed out on the Bucks in WWE for two whole years.
Last year, they may have come closer to joining the company than anyone realizes. The door nearly creaked open by way of A.J. Styles, their one-time stable-mate in New Japan and the current world champion of WWE’s SmackDown brand. In January 2016, Styles and two other Bullet Club members, Karl “Machine Gun” Anderson and Doc Gallows, left New Japan as part of a WWE talent raid. The Massie brothers say that, had the move come a few weeks earlier, they may have joined in.
“When A.J. was about to leave, he pulled us aside before anybody knew anything and he asked us about our contracts,” Matt recalls. “At that point, it was December and we had just signed—we signed in November. He’s like, ‘You did? Ughhh.’ The idea was he was going to try and get us to walk out with him and be the guys with him… If we never signed, there’s a great chance we could have been walking out on Raw with those guys, I feel.”
Ironically, Styles was talking to a couple of guys who DID want some at the time, but crummy timing ruined everything. Now the Bucks don’t want none, and they’ll be on the independent circuit until at least 2018. At this point, it’s likely they’ll stay there for good, because they’re making a lot of money without having to be on the road 300 days a year, so good for them.
Still, it’s hard not to be a bit bummed out that we could have had a whole big damn Bullet Club in WWE this whole time, instead of Gallows and Anderson spending half the year being fake balls doctors.
