The Young Bucks purposely made their matches less exciting during their EVP run in AEW.
Matt & Nick Jackson came back to AEW in January 2024 with a new gimmick, portraying themselves as villainous EVP’s of the company. They became the AEW Tag Team Champions in this run, but their matches were less exciting and earned accusations that the Young Bucks were washed.
However, that was their plan. The Young Bucks spoke with the Tunnel Talk podcast where they revealed that they changed their style after turning heel, tricking fans into thinking they were washed up and no longer as good as they once were.
“When we did the EVP thing, we were like ‘let’s have really boring matches and let’s stop doing all of the super athletic moves that get the big reactions because it is hard. It’s hard in general because most of our stuff is pretty exciting.”
Nick Jackson then jumped in.
“I stopped doing dives for eight months. I didn’t do a tumble out to the floor for eight months and that was on purpose. We literally wanted people to think ‘Are these guys not athletic anymore? Are they just boring wrestlers now?'”
“I stay off social media but one thing I really like, it really pissed me off, was like someone said ‘I thought the Young Bucks were washed’ and I was thinking ‘Oh come on! You guys fell for the gimmick we were doing!’ We didn’t forget how to wrestle out of nowhere.”
Young Bucks Hurt Their Matches By Changing Their Style
Matt Jackson interrupted again and said it worked in a way, mostly due to re-introducing their style. However, it backfired in a way, because the matches weren’t as exciting as they could be, and fans actually thought they lost a step.
“It worked because if we continued wrestling that same style, people would be like ‘Oh, they’re doing the same stuff’. But then when you switch it up and dial it down a lot, but then you bring it back, there’s a huge reaction. It’s like ‘Woah! They can still go?’.”
“It was all on purpose,” Matt Jackson of the Young Bucks added. “Like we do everything we do is on purpose because we put a lot of thought into every little thing. So if you see us have a match where we’re not leaving our feet much, we’re just trying something new.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t always work out. I feel maybe it hurt our matches as little bit at some points in the year. They weren’t as exciting as people normally like our matches to be. So I remember Nick just going ‘Matt, let’s just go freaking kill it’, like we all know how to kill it.”
