When The Young Bucks do eventually hang up their boots, they will likely go down in the eyes of the fans as one of the greatest, and most important tag teams of all time for a variety of reasons. Their success on the independent circuit, crossing over to New Japan Pro Wrestling, and forming AEW have been instrumental in the direction that many wrestlers have taken their own careers in recent years. Despite all that Matt and Nick Jackson have done, they still have some things they want to achieve before they retire, and during a recent interview on Sports Illustrated's "The Takedown" with Jon Alba, The Young Bucks discussed finally getting the chance to wrestle WWE Hall of Famers Adam "Edge" Copeland and Christian Cage.
"We've been thinking of that for a while now. I think it would be insane," Nick said. "It's crazy to even think that match is a possibility because if you told me this in 2019 when we helped create AEW, I would be like 'no chance in hell' right? So if we do get a chance to do it, I feel like it could be a very special tag match."
Matt would go on to say that the team formerly known as Edge and Christian, as well as The Hardy Boyz and The Dudley Boyz, have been influences on them, but since they have wrestled The Hardys and The Dudleys before, Copeland and Cage are the last dream match that Matt and Nick have. "I said thatI told someone this, I said that might be our last big money match, dream match that is left," Matt said." I think we've done them all. That might be it and I hope that we can do it and it would be silly not to do it while we're all still here in AEW. So yeah, that's still on the bucket list and I pray we get to do it."
The Young Bucks understand that they only have a certain amount of years left in their own careers before they will have no choice but to call it a day. However, Nick feels like some of those thoughts have only become more prominent recently because it feels like everyone they know is deciding to retire. "It's been really weird, especially in the last few years it feels like everyone is retiring, it's like become a trend and it's sad because, as you said, it's like an end of an era for a lot of these guys, especially for us. Seeing The Dudleys end their tag career is pretty shocking, but I'm glad they got to do it, and on their own terms because a lot of guys don't get to do that."
What really hammers home the idea of retiring to The Young Bucks is that it's not just stars who they watched growing up who are retiring, it's people they've become close friends with and have worked with for many years, making the whole situation even more weird for Nick especially. "Seeing our friend Christopher Daniels retire this year actually...Sting, Bryan Danielson, John Cena's ending his career soon. So it's very weird, it's like a whole generation is wrapping up and we're not far behind it which kind of scares me."
Matt rounded off by saying that seeing people he's known his entire career retire is a reminder of his own mortality, and while it's emotional, it's something that he is happy to see at the end of the day, echoing Nick's point about how seeing his friends and colleagues retire on their own terms is a lot better than seeing them forced into retirement.
Please credit "The Takedown"when using quotes from this article, and give a H/Tto Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
