AEW’s The Young Bucks Reveal How Much Money WWE Offered Them

AEW World Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks have confirmed in numerous interviews that, prior to launching All Elite Wrestling as a promotion, the pair nearly wound up signing with WWE back in 2018. The pair appeared on the latest Talk’n Shop podcast with Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson and confirmed just how much money WWE offered them. Matt Jackson explained that during a conversation with Triple H the pair were offered $500,000 guaranteed each and would be apart of a package deal with Kenny Omega (who was at the top of New Japan Pro Wrestling at the time). The two went to Ring of Honor to see if they could match it, but the smaller company couldn’t come anywhere close to their goal of making seven figures in a single year.

“I knew [Good Brothers] money. Everyone else was getting [$150,000] to start. He’s already offering us $500,000 each guaranteed,” Jackson said (h/t Fightful). “I’m going, ‘what!’ Right then, we knew our street value. That was the first offer. Basically, he said, ‘by the end of your trip, I would love an answer.’ The whole trip, I’m [stressed]. I kept dragging it out.”

The pair said they turned down around four to five offers from WWE. They explained why in an interview with Chris Van Vliet in July 2019.

“It was hard though because we had some great offers on the table,” Matt added. “We talked to them [WWE] endlessly. At one point I remember me, Nick and Kenny were in a room, because all of our deals were up at the same time, and we got off the phone one day and said, ‘Hey, I think we’re going to WWE.’ It was that close. And Tony came to us at the right time and he just made the better offer. And I’m not talking financially, I’m talking, ‘Hey, you guy could run this thing.’ And that’s not something we could get elsewhere. [He said] ‘And I want you guys to hire your people.’”

“You can’t put a dollar amount on any of that,” Nick said.

“You can’t put a price tag on mental health,” Matt added. “And being around all of the people you love and actually being able to be creative, you can’t put a price tag on that.”

“And one thing that took us out of the race for going to WWE was the amount of dates they wanted us to do,” Nick continued. “But we have young families. Even with the limited schedule it was like, ‘god, I can’t imagine being home for two days for my kids.’”

The two are currently the AEW World Tag Team Champions and recently turned heel to realign themselves with Omega, Gallows and Anderson.