When the professional wrestling business was completely stagnant in 2018, many fans were disenfranchised with their fandom. Total Nonstop Action had just finished a year on The Pursuit Channel of all places, with ice fishing legitimately as the lead-in program, and the WWE was in the midst of the Roman Reigns baby face super push that flopped, but Vince McMahon remained steadfast that he would force Roman over to the audience as the next John Cena for the company. That’s one of the domino effects of a monopoly, and McMahon knew he had one so if fans wanted to watch professional wrestling in the United States, they were going to watch WWE, especially after Impact Wrestling’s highest level of exposure became Twitch since the brand was so toxic at the time that it couldn’t secure a TV deal of any substance in America.
The fact that both organizations are in a different place today shows how the dynamics of the industry can shift over the course of time.
Still, after the All In event proved that there was enough of a demand for an alternative product that 10,000 fans were willing to buy tickets for it and that 50,000 PPV orders were placed without direct television advertisement, Tony Khan was willing to put enough money into a pro wrestling product to launch a full-scale promotion that would tour weekly for live television, and most importantly, offer comparable money to talent.
Of course, the blue print for Tony was set by the success that The Elite had in smaller venues for Ring Of Honor and on the other side of the globe in New Japan. That’s not a criticism, but rather that there was proof of concept. Sinclair Broadcasting, the group that bought Ring Of Honor from Cary Silkin in 2011 before it eventually sold the wrestling league to Khan in 2022, wasn’t going to invest the type of money to truly put ROH on a national level. Keep in mind, Sinclair is in the television business, not the wrestling business. They bought ROH for its relatively cheap original programming without any intention of trying to compete with Vince McMahon or any other billionaire for talent. The fact that Sinclair decided to put some money into the project and sign wrestlers to contracts after the exodus of The Elite to launch AEW is a different discussion for a different time.
Credit to Tony Khan, he saw a commodity that organically gained a following between The Young Bucks major popularity on social media, Cody Rhodes’ ambitious exit from WWE during that era, and the praise that Kenny Omega garnered in The Wrestling Observer newsletter for his incredible of series of matches with Kazuchika Okada as an opportunity to launch a new promotion in the sports entertainment industry.
The ups and downs of the past five years will be the subject of books, documentaries, and podcast clips in hindsight years from now.
That being said, after a six-month hiatus from the company, The Young Bucks returned during the Jon Moxley/Swerve Strickland main event at the Dynasty pay-per-view earlier this month. The Bucks are still EVPs of the organization, despite their roles behind the scenes being reduced in the time since the launch of Dynamite in late-2019. One of the other original EVPs, Kenny Omega also recently returned to the promotion after a life-threatening case of diverticulitis put him on the sidelines for over a year, not too long after he took almost a year away to heal from various injuries. However, Omega has said publicly that he doesn’t weld any power backstage, and it appears that if he still has the title, it’s in name-only at this point.
It should be mentioned that there are numerous examples throughout the history of the business that members of the active roster shouldn’t work in the office at the same time because of the natural appearance of a conflict of interests. On a rare occasion, it can work, but those scenario are few and far between, and even then would still draw some level of criticism.
Matt and Nick Jackson made their return to television this past Wednesday, working a tag match against Kevin Knight and Mike Bailey. However, the six months away from television might not have been enough time to reignite a demand for the team, as the episode generated just 521,000 viewers, which is the lowest rating for the show this year.
It might be a harsh reality, but the question should at least be asked, does All Elite Wrestling have a Young Bucks problem?
Sure, the main event segment of Jamie Hayter vs. Kris Statlander wasn’t going to retain an audience, which says a lot more about the lack of opportunity they’ve been given to showcase themselves as stars than their skills, but the fact that the show still averaged the lowest amount of viewers this year is an indication that The Young Bucks’ first match back on Dynamite in six months didn’t draw or keep viewers either.
There could be a few different reasons for this, but none of them are good news for the EVPs, as it shows that their star power as part of the core that launched the company has diminished considerable since they were on national television on a regular basis.
As trivial as it might sound, that in itself could be an issue for the lack of buzz around The Bucks’ return to TV. One of the criticisms of the pure high spot style is that while extremely graceful, it can also become very repetitive because matches are based on the moves without much diversity of its presentation based on the specific opponent. It was much easier for The Bucks to keep their matches fresh when fans only saw their matches once or twice a month based on certain independent shows they watched rather than a national audience that would see similar matches or the same spots weekly on TBS.
It also didn’t do them any favors, even with the most dedicated All Elite fan base, that they were basically the reason that Punk was shut out of the company for at least a portion of the time that he was under contract. Don’t get me wrong, they were no winners in that entire situation and the argument could be made that the company still hasn’t recovered from the negative publicity that the original backstage fight caused a few years ago. The real-life Phil Brooks was just as unprofessional when he buried the entire company with Tony Khan sitting right next to him looking like a deer in headlights as The Bucks were to storm into his locker room for a physical altercation when they are supposed to be management. The whole incident exposed their roles as EVPs or office for the organization as a sham, and Tony Khan as someone that was only qualified to be a promoter because his family had enough money to fund his vanity project. Sure, CM Punk is a master politician and wanted to spin the narrative in his favor, but when he made it clear that he was willing to bury the hatchet and work with The Elite, you can believe he would’ve sold every super kick if he was booked in a match against them because that’s how the most money would’ve been made. Granted, CM Punk is a self-absorbed jerk that thinks he’s much more important than he actually is, but he’s also a talented jerk that understands the entire point of the business to to draw money. Make no mistake about it, Punk proved that he was still a pro, and when The Bucks refused to speak to him, it made them look too soft for the pro wrestling business.
I understand why the criticism of their handling of the Punk situation was used as a part of their heel EVP personas before their hiatus, but it just didn’t get over. The leaned into the notion that the fans soured on them because they thought they were more important to the organization, only to find out that the audience did actually sour on them. There’s a difference between heel heat and go away heat. The fact that there was a decline for their return to Dynamite shows that there isn’t a demand to see The Bucks on AEW programming. Some might cite competition from the playoffs in the NBA or the NHL, but there’s sports competition on a regular basis that didn’t result in the lowest Dynamite numbers of the year.
Right or wrong, the stigma around Matt and Nick Jackson are that they’ve ultimately done more to hinder than to help All Elite Wrestling, which prompts the audience to ask, did they really want to change the industry or do they simply want a platform to promote themselves?
I actually met The Young Bucks at a Ring Of Honor show in 2017 and they were very polite so I have nothing but good things to say about them based on my limited interaction. However, and this is the biggest issue, despite being some of the founders of the company and the immense amount of talent that they have as performers, if the audience doesn’t care about what they are booked for on the show, it’s possible that The Young Bucks won’t have a important place on the roster.
What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
E mail [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
