The Young Bucks (Nick and Matt Jackson) had a run in TNA, now known as Impact Wrestling, starting in 2009 before going on the indy scene where they later became the big stars that they are known as now.
The Jackson brothers talked about their time in TNA which ended in 2011 and why their time with the company wasn’t long-term during an interview with the Wrestling Perspective Podcast. While in the promotion, they went under the name Generation Me. In this interview, they made it clear that they eventually grew disgruntled with the company and asked for their release.
“They split us up and we became a singles act for two months, and then for no reason at all we got back together and nothing was explained by it, so after that I told Matt that these guys don’t care about us at all so we felt that at point we felt that the writing was on the wall so we were thinking, hey, maybe we go elsewhere and then come back here and then they would take us seriously,” Nick said. “That was our thinking at the time, but it was just a little bit of everything that happened.”
“We had a bad deal also. It was our first contract we ever signed so we’ve learned a lot since then, but it was the first deal we were ever offered so immediately without negotiating we signed it,” Matt added. “It was a bad deal and basically we were getting paid per appearance and they decided to keep us home for a long period of time, which meant that we were literally making $0 some months.”
The tag team would continue to reflect on how a series of problems stemming from bad business practices led to them eventually made the call to leave the company
“I remember some weeks they would fly one of us in that wasn’t even working on the show so we would be in Florida and not be paid because they forgot to book us but they would have us fly there,” Nick said. “I said, wait a minute, we are flying all the way down here, doesn’t that count as work? They were like no, you have to be on TV to make money. There were a few times that we flew there and didn’t get paid.”
“It is different now and the whole team has changed, but back then it was a mess. We didn’t know who was in charge of what,” Matt said. “I had to keep getting on Terry Taylor, who was in charge of Talent Relations, but I had to get on him every few weeks demanding where my check was? I had to pay rent but my checks weren’t coming on time. It was bad. We were at a point where we were like, we are young, we know that we are good. It is obviously not working out here, and like Nick said, maybe we can come back in a couple of years and they can see the value in us and we can get better deals the next time around.”
“It was the best decision we ever made,” Nick said. “I remember the next year we made more money on the independents than we did with our TNA contracts.”
H/T to Wrestling Inc for the transcripts
