The Young Bucks have built much of their reputation on being able to control the pace of a match. Whether wrestling in extended tag-team showcases, championship defenses, or high-profile grudge bouts, Matt and Nick Jackson are generally portrayed as a team capable of finding an answer once the bell rings. That is why their latest AEW Dynamite defeat stood out so sharply.
Just days after retaining the AEW World Tag Team Championships against Kyle Fletcher and Kevin Knight at AEW WrestleDream, Matt and Nick were back in action on Dynamite against Mark Davis and Jake Doyle. The champions entered the bout with the status that comes with holding AEW’s tag titles, but they never had the opportunity to establish themselves. Davis and Doyle decisively beat The Young Bucks in a match that ended quickly, with the Jackson brothers failing to land a single move of offense.
The result marked an unfamiliar type of loss for one of modern wrestling’s most established tag teams: a squash match. It was not a competitive defeat in which The Young Bucks were narrowly outmaneuvered, nor was it a long championship encounter where momentum changed repeatedly. The match was over before Matt and Nick could gain any traction at all.
That unusual outcome became a point of discussion on the newest episode of Being The Elite. The Young Bucks closed the episode by addressing the loss with visible confusion, seemingly unable to fully account for how a team of their experience had been overwhelmed so completely. Brandon Cutler then joined them and supplied the terminology they had been searching for.
For more background on this topic, read Eddie Kingston Opens Up on Grief and Wrestling’s Support at PROGRESS Chapter 199.
“Coming from a lot of experience, what you guys just experienced for the very first time in your careers is a squash match.”
Cutler’s line works on two levels. On the surface, it is a direct joke at the expense of Matt and Nick, with Cutler presenting himself as someone highly qualified to identify a lopsided defeat. At the same time, it underlines precisely how unusual the Dynamite result was for The Young Bucks. Their confusion is central to the humor because the brothers are not accustomed to being dispatched before they can execute even a single piece of offense.
A Rare Position for AEW’s Tag Team Champions
As reigning AEW World Tag Team Champions, The Young Bucks remain at the center of the division’s championship picture. Their WrestleDream victory over Fletcher and Knight reinforced that standing only days before the Dynamite loss. The sudden reversal against Davis and Doyle therefore carries a different feel than a routine non-title setback.
Champions are often tested in non-title matches, and an upset can immediately alter the perception of a potential challenger. In this case, however, Davis and Doyle did not simply defeat the titleholders. They shut them down from the opening moments and prevented the champions from showing any of the offense associated with their usual in-ring approach.
That distinction matters. A close loss could be viewed as evidence that an opponent caught The Young Bucks on the right night. A match in which the champions cannot land a move creates a more severe image: Davis and Doyle had a complete answer for Matt and Nick before their opponents could put a plan into motion.
The available details do not establish what comes next for either team, and no immediate championship rematch or title match was confirmed through the Being The Elite segment. Still, the performance gives Davis and Doyle a result that is difficult to ignore. Beating the AEW World Tag Team Champions is significant in any setting. Doing it in dominant fashion, directly after the champions retained their titles at WrestleDream, puts an even brighter spotlight on the result.
Cutler Turns an Awkward Moment Into a Familiar BTE Joke
Brandon Cutler has long been connected to The Young Bucks through Being The Elite, where the show’s comedy, character work, and behind-the-scenes-style presentation have frequently allowed the group to react to developments from AEW programming in a different setting. His appearance after the squash loss continued that tradition.
Cutler did not attempt to offer a tactical breakdown of Davis and Doyle’s strategy or provide an elaborate explanation for why the match went the way it did. Instead, he framed the incident through his own experience. By calling it a squash match and emphasizing that it was a first for The Young Bucks, Cutler reduced an otherwise startling result to a blunt, uncomfortable label.
The joke also preserves the important story point from Dynamite. The Young Bucks were not shown brushing off the loss as ordinary business or claiming they had simply made a mistake. Their confusion helped present the defeat as something outside their normal experience. Cutler’s arrival made that discomfort funny, but it did not change the basic fact that the champions were overwhelmed.
For Matt and Nick, that leaves a notable contrast between the two most recent landmarks in their AEW schedule. At WrestleDream, they successfully defended the AEW World Tag Team Championships against Fletcher and Knight. On Dynamite shortly afterward, they were beaten so quickly that they could not mount a single offensive sequence. The juxtaposition is what makes the squash especially memorable.
What the Loss Says About Davis and Doyle
Mark Davis and Jake Doyle emerged from Dynamite with the kind of statement win that can reshape attention around a team in one night. It is one thing to score a victory over decorated opponents; it is another to make those opponents look powerless in the process. The fact that The Young Bucks were unable to land offense gives the Davis and Doyle win a level of clarity that a disputed finish or a hard-fought decision would not have carried.
There is no need to overstate a single match as a guarantee of future championship opportunities. AEW has not formally confirmed that the result will lead directly to a title bout. Yet the match itself provides Davis and Doyle with a compelling argument if they pursue the champions again. They have already demonstrated that, at least on this occasion, they could neutralize Matt and Nick immediately.
For The Young Bucks, the most pressing issue is not merely that they lost. It is that they did not get the chance to show whether they could recover. Their typical strengths—timing, teamwork, quick-strike offense, and the ability to accelerate a match—never came into play. The Dynamite bout offered no evidence that the champions were outlasted or gradually worn down. They were simply stopped.
The Championship Picture Gains an Unexpected Question
AEW’s tag division now has an obvious question hanging over it: can The Young Bucks respond if they encounter Davis and Doyle again? The champions’ WrestleDream defense showed they can retain their titles under pressure against Kyle Fletcher and Kevin Knight. But the Davis and Doyle match presented a wholly different challenge, one The Young Bucks did not solve.
In wrestling, a decisive non-title victory can create momentum, but it can also force champions to reevaluate how they prepare for an opponent. The Young Bucks’ reaction on Being The Elite suggests that the loss was not something they had a ready explanation for. Their uncertainty, followed by Cutler’s deadpan clarification, made the segment entertaining while keeping the defeat at the forefront.
The episode also included Matt Jackson joking about the limited number of updated promotional photos for The Young Bucks. That separate moment continued the show’s familiar self-aware style, though the dominant wrestling development remained the champions’ loss to Davis and Doyle.
Ultimately, Cutler’s comment captured the entire situation in a single sentence. The Young Bucks, a team accustomed to high-level competition and major victories, experienced a squash match for the first time in their careers. Whether that proves to be a one-night anomaly or the beginning of a larger issue for the AEW World Tag Team Champions remains unresolved. What is certain is that Davis and Doyle delivered a result that Matt and Nick Jackson—and Brandon Cutler—will not soon forget.
Darryl Polo
Darryl Polo is a passionate wrestling fan covering WWE, AEW, TNA and beyond. He loves great rivalries, breakout stars and the moments that keep fans talking long after the bell. How we work.