Source: Busted Open Radio
ROH, NJPW and current PWG Tag Team Champions, The Young Bucks, talked with Busted Open for the 1st time to discuss their career.
Young Bucks on criticism of their style from the old guard of wrestling:
Nick: “We plain out just say, ‘You’re outdated’. This is what’s hot, this is what’s new, and you’ve just got to move on. Things from back then don’t necessarily work as good now. Some of the stuff is outdated, like I said. I think if you did a chinlock for 10 minutes at a Ring of Honor show, they’re chanting ‘This is boring’. You can’t do that type of stuff nowadays. It worked back then, it was good back then, but now, it’s different. Fans nowadays, they have shorter attention spans and they want to be entertained like this and we try to give that.”
Matt: “And if you don’t…they’re going to be on their phone. I want to be the guy that has their attention from the time I hit the curtain, the entire time, I go back to the curtain. I want to be that match. Like he said, I can’t put a guy in a chinlock for 10 minutes straight and keep their attention. It’s just not going to happen in 2016.”
On their vocal detractors losing credibility:
Matt: “I guess they lose a little more credibility with the way they react to it and the way their behavior is, the way they talk about it. If they just downright say, ‘This is wrong. It’s not supposed to be this way’, yeah, they lose credibility because they’re less cool now. The fans are going, ‘No, no! You’re burying my favorite guy! What are you doing, man? I thought you were cool. Why are you talking crap about my favorite wrestler?’. There’s a way to do it or there’s a way to present the idea and say, ‘Listen, I’m not saying the way they do it now is wrong, but the way I did it back in the day was different’. That’s the way to talk about it. You don’t just bury it and, in Jim Cornette’s style, do a shoot interview for an hour on your podcast and curse and say all these things – how we should be hung in Times Square for doing a certain spot… That’s when you lose that credibility… Just be articulate, talk, state your opinion. State facts why you feel like your opinion is right. You don’t have to be a jerk about it. That’s all I’m saying.”
On the surge in popularity of Bullet Club coinciding with their inclusion:
Nick: “We feel like there’s some truth to that because we feel like the Bullet Club was a cool thing at first – maybe it was because of us, but when we joined New Japan, things skyrocketed.”
Matt: “We took our fan-base that we’ve been building on the independents for so long, we took them to Japan, and they never really watched New Japan Pro Wrestling, at least some of the niche audience. We have a big following, you know? We have a cult following”.
Nick: “We know how to market our t-shirts and as soon as we saw that Bullet Club shirt, we were like, ‘We got to market the crap out of that thing’.”
Matt: “It was a cool design, but you know what? It’s a team collaboration. All these guys you’ve mentioned, we all hit it off so well. We have this undeniable chemistry. We all brought out a certain side of each other that no one else had seen. When we were all in a room together, it was special. I think people not only bought the shirt because it’s a cool shirt, they bought the shirt because of what the shirt defined. It defined a good time, it defined a party, it defined the cool thing and we all created cool.”
On the success of many of their former colleagues in WWE:
Matt: “I’m happy for all those guys, man. They all deserve it. They’re all hustlers. They’re globe-trotting wrestlers that have been doing this for years and they’re the best in the world. If anyone deserves it, it’s them. They’re the good guys.”
On any milestone goals they still want to accomplish:
Matt: “I would love to wrestle and rock Madison Square Garden one day. I think that’d be kind of cool.”
Nick: “I don’t know. We’ve done quite a bit. The one goal that I always tell all my family is just to continue to make as much money as possible and to stay healthy. If that means going to WWE, so be it. If that means staying here, so be it. Whatever’s best for my family if it comes down to it.”
Matt: “I just want to be happy. I want to keep my health, keep my body, keep my family. If I can do all those things, then I’m a happy man.”