The Rockers Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty

Profile of the Tag Team, Their History and Their Break-Up

Oct 24, 2009

The Rockers were Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty. Together they were a successful and memorable tag team of the 1980s and early 1990s in the World Wrestling Federation.

Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty formed a wrestling tag team in 1986. The first wrestling promotion they worked for was Central States Wrestling. A few months into their debut, they won their first tag team championship from Brad and Bart Batten and became Central States Tag Team Champions. They only held the titles for a week, but it was their first taste of wrestling stardom.

The Midnight Rockers in American Wrestling Association

Jannetty and Michaels moved on to the American Wrestling Association (AWA) and called themselves The Midnight Rockers. They toiled in the lower card and gradually began to move up. They feuded with Buddy Rose and Doug Somers. After feuding with them for several months, Michaels and Jannetty finally won the AWA tag titles from them on January 27, 1987. Shortly after that, The Midnight Rockers signed on to a deal with the World Wrestling Federation.

The Midnight Rockers Get Fired

After being signed by the World Wrestling Federation, Michaels and Jannetty only fought in a few matches before they were fired. The issue apparently was that just a few weeks after joining the then-WWF, The Rockers were accused of not taking their wrestling duties seriously enough, including spending their nights partying.

The Midnight Rockers in Continental Wrestling Association and AWA

After being fired, the Midnight Rockers joined the Continental Wrestling Association, affiliated with AWA. They began feuding with The Nasty Boys Jerry Sags and Brian Knobbs. They won the AWA Southern Tag Team Championship from The Rock ‘n’ Roll RPMs on October 26, 1987. Later that year they defeated The Original Midnight Express (Dennis Condrey and Randy Rose) to win the AWA World tag titles. They later quit when they were refused a pay raise.

The Rockers Join the World Wrestling Federation Again

On June 18, 1988, The Rockers (with a shortened name) made their World Wrestling Federation debut again without much acclaim in a squash match. They made their pay-per-view debut at that year’s Survivor Series as part of a ten-man tag match. During their time in Vince McMahon’s organization, Jannetty and Michaels feuded with The Rougeaus, The Brain Busters, Power and Glory and The Orient Express.

There was controversy regarding their win of the World Wrestling Federation Tag Team Championship. On October 30, 1990, The Rockers faced The Hart Foundation and defeated them for the tag belts. Because this was not shown on television, however, only the crowd at the event knew what had happened. It was decided that The Rockers would not even be acknowledged as the belt holders, and so the titles reverted back to the Hart Foundation.

The Rockers Break Up

The team stayed together until January 1992, when they broke up on the set of Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake’s talk show The Barbershop. Rather, Shawn Michaels super-kicked Jannetty and threw him through the glass-plated window of the Barbershop after it seemed that they had resolved their differences as a team. The move seemingly injured Marty, and cemented Michaels’ heel turn.

The former tag team feuded only sporadically after their split, mostly in 1992 and 1993 due to Jannetty’s various entrances and exits from the company. They fought over the Intercontinental title, with Jannetty initially failing to take the belt from Michaels. However, he managed to win the belt from his former partner on Monday Night Raw on May 17, 1993. He lost it to him a few weeks later.

The Rockers Reunite for One Night Only

On March 14, 2005, Marty Jannetty made a surprising return to World Wrestling Entertainment, as it was by then called. He teamed up with Shawn Michaels against La Résistance, with Jannetty getting the pin after using his move the “Rocker Dropper”. Michaels and Jannetty later interacted a few more times, though not as a tag team, when they saved each other from various beatings from other wrestlers.

While The Rockers were not the longest-lasting tag team in the history of professional wrestling, nor did they win the most titles, they nevertheless made an impact on the sport with their energetic style and charisma. Shawn Michaels ultimately proved to be more successful in singles wrestling than Marty Jannetty, but their later performance together showed that they still had the chemistry of a solid tag team.

Sources:

Michaels, Shawn, with Aaron Feigenbaum, Heartbreak & Triumph: The Shawn Michaels Story (New York: Pocket Books, 2005).

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