THE YOUNG BUCKS

The Jacksons are brothers from Chandler, Arizona who trained themselves by watching matches and working every independent show they could get booked on. By the mid-2000s they were fixtures of the Southern California indie scene and PWG (Pro Wrestling Guerrilla) in particular — the promotion that became a proving ground for wrestlers who would later define a generation.

Their self-promotion was relentless and ahead of its time. YouTube match compilations, Twitter engagement, travelling to Japan for NJPW dates: all of this at a moment when the typical career path for American independent wrestlers did not include any of it. By the time the Elite faction coalesced and AEW became a real possibility, the Young Bucks were already one of the most recognisable tag teams outside of WWE without ever having wrestled there.

Being The Elite ran for hundreds of episodes and documented the faction's life on the road, backstage, and in kayfabe scenarios that blurred the line between reality and fiction in ways that felt new for the time. The series built a genuine fanbase for the Elite that pre-dated AEW's existence and carried over into it.

The tension the Elite dynamic creates — performers who are also executives, talent who are also employers — has produced some of AEW's most compelling long-term storylines. When Tony Khan has feuded with the Elite on screen, or when the Bucks have used their EVP status as a plot device, the line between character and reality becomes genuinely unclear in ways that few wrestling storylines achieve.

The EVP storyline is, in concept, one of the most interesting things in wrestling in recent years: active performers using their genuine backstage authority as an on-screen weapon. The Young Bucks as heels lean into their real-life roles as Executive Vice Presidents — implying (or outright stating) that their position protects them from consequences, allows them to manipulate match bookings, and means that the rules of fair competition do not apply to them the same way they do to everyone else.

It is a storyline that could only work in AEW, in the specific circumstance of performers who genuinely have institutional power. The meta quality of it — the acknowledgment that these are real decisions being made by real people who also happen to be characters — is unique in mainstream professional wrestling.

The execution has varied. When the material is working — when the Bucks are using their authority to clearly manipulate outcomes, when the opponents' outrage feels earned, when the storyline acknowledges what it is without over-explaining it — it is compelling. The crowd heat for genuine authority abuse is different from conventional heel heat. It touches something real about workplace dynamics and unequal power that conventional wrestling storylines do not.

The controversy around the EVP angle also has a real-world dimension: critics of the concept have argued that performers who genuinely book themselves into favourable positions are difficult to credibly portray as underdogs or narratively suffer consequences. The tension between on-screen storytelling and backstage reality is the EVP storyline in concentrated form.

FTR (Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood, formerly The Revival in WWE) arrived in AEW in 2020 and immediately the wrestling conversation turned to the obvious question: when do the Young Bucks and FTR finally have the definitive tag team match? These were the two best tag teams in professional wrestling for several years, representing diametrically opposed philosophies.

The Young Bucks approach is high-paced, spot-driven, deeply influenced by Japanese junior heavyweight and ROH-era indie wrestling. FTR's approach is old-school Southern tag wrestling — heat segments, hot tags, psychology-first structure that prioritises narrative over spectacle. Their clashes were not just great matches but arguments about what tag team wrestling should be.

The rivalry stretched across multiple years and included matches in different contexts — babyface vs babyface, heel vs face dynamics, championship implications, and personal stakes that accumulated from earlier encounters. Wrestling fans who follow the art form have pointed to specific Bucks-FTR matches as among the best tag team work of the modern era.

The proxy war element — AEW's in-house stars vs. WWE-developed talents who brought a traditional sensibility into the new promotion — added real texture to the rivalry. It was not just a wrestling match. It was a debate conducted through matches.

In 2026, Matt and Nick Jackson continue as the most powerful stable faction in AEW. The EVP storyline has given them a sustainable character framework that does not depend on working face or heel in a conventional sense — their position is genuinely ambiguous in ways that generate heat without requiring them to be traditionally sympathetic or traditionally despicable.

The tag team division in AEW has always been positioned as one of the company's strongest features, and the Bucks remain central to it. Potential opponents with the profile to generate meaningful title feuds — FTR if available, international teams, other Elite-adjacent acts — give the Bucks a roster of credible challengers.

The longer question for 2026 is whether the EVP storyline evolves into something that has a clear direction, or whether it remains an ambient status quo. The best version of this angle leads somewhere — a babyface faction rising to challenge the Bucks' institutional authority, or an external force that strips that authority away and forces them to compete on merit alone. That story, if AEW tells it properly, could be one of the defining arcs of the year.