AEW's New "Saviors" Have Been Identified
Who will "save" AEW - and when will they do it?
The Young Bucks will be presented as AEW's "saviors" in the ongoing Jon Moxley storyline upon returning to television.
This is per Dave Meltzer, who reports that AEW creative's idea is for Moxley and his Death Riders stable to cause so much chaos over the next while, the Bucks will eventually return to "save" the company they helped found.
Moxley and stablemates PAC, Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta, and Marina Shafir have been positioned as an existential threat to AEW, having held multiple Dynamite, Collision, and pay-per-view segments hostage over the last few weeks. A core group of AEW loyalists including Darby Allin, Private Party, Daniel Garcia, the Dark Order, and the Orange Cassidy-led Conglomeration have stood opposite them, though the Death Riders have been dominant inside the ring and out.
Last week's Dynamite saw the Death Riders brutalise Young Bucks affiliate Brandon Cutler by taking a hammer to his hand. This happened seconds after Matthew and Nicholas Jackson had left the arena, stating that they'd be "working from home" for the foreseeable future. Thus far, AEW has presented the Bucks and Elite stablemates Jack Perry and Kazuchika Okada as reluctant to get involved with Moxley and his fellow heel group.
Why The Young Bucks Are Taking Time Off From AEW
Dave Meltzer's F4WOnline/Wrestling Observer Cohort Bryan Alvarez reported on 31 October that Nicholas Jackson had been working with a separated shoulder prior to the Young Bucks announcing their hiatus. There is currently no word on the 'when' or the 'how' of the injury.
In his latest report, Meltzer states that the Bucks aren't currently scheduled for 23 November's Full Gear pay-per-view. They may be gone from AEW until January, though they have been announced for the company's Wrestle Dynasty event (a Tokyo, Japan co-promotion with NJPW) on the 5th of that month.
The Young Bucks and the rest of the Elite have been heels throughout 2024, with the group initially seeking to reclaim inner-promotional power by physically assaulting AEW founder and CEO Tony Khan on Dynamite. This angle was scrapped within a few months of the initial beatdown, though the Bucks, Okada, and Perry have remained antagonists.
As foundational roster members and Executive Vice Presidents, the Bucks, in a way, are natural opposition to the Death Riders, who seek to take AEW by force. The storyline's execution will require a deft creative hand, however. As the Bucks themselves were once placed in a similar (albeit less brutish) role to the Death Riders, and have been villains all year, AEW's storytelling will have to be razor-sharp if the Jacksons are to be taken as believable heroes upon returning.
Fortunately, Khan and his team have several months to get it right.