Shawn Michaels has stated that he and Marty Jannetty are no long friends – revealing that he no longer has a contact number for his former tag team partner.
Michaels and Jannetty teamed together in the WWE for many years as The Rockers. They were one of the top young teams in the company at the time, putting on the fast-paced, high-flying matches that fans had never seen before. They were beloved by the fans, even though they never won the WWE Tag Team Championships.
…well, never officially won them.
In 1990, the Rockers took on the Hart Foundation in a championship match for the WWE Tag Team Champion. The Rockers defeated the team of Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart on Saturday Nights Main Event, and won the WWE Tag Team Championship. However, the top rope snapped before the first fall in this “Best 2 out of 3 falls matches. The four men did their best to work around it, and produced a fine match by all accounts.
However, due to the breaking rope, Vince McMahon decided the match was not fit to air on TV. Vince didn’t want the lasting memory of the Rockers title win to be that of a snapped top rope ruining the show. Thus, he reversed the decision, cancelled the match and decided to give them the belts some time later. Sadly he changed his mind and the duo never tasted gold together.
This was because of Michaels turning on Jannetty in what became known as the ‘Barber Shop Incident‘ – with Michaels kicking his partner through a glass window in Brutus Beefcake’s barber shop. This started a run which would take HBK to the top of the WWE while Jannetty would languish in the midcard before being released.
Speaking to Challenge Mania, Shawn Michaels revealed that he and Marty Jannetty are no longer friends and that he does not have a contact number for his former tag team partner. The Rockers duo are no longer in contact with one another, although Michaels did admit that they do still see each other occasionally.
The Heartbreak Kid claimed that sometimes “he seems great” but that other times “less so”. He claimed Jannetty’s situation was “heart-breaking” for him (if you’ll pardon the pun) and that all he can do it care for him when times are hard.
“I no longer have a contact number for him. There are times I see him, he is great, he seems great. Other times it’s less so. It heartbreaking to me, just as it is to everyone else. I don’t know what any of us can do in that aspect. He has made a decision on how he wants to live his life. Truth be told, it’s not my place or anyone else’s to tell him how. All we can do is care about him when it’s not going well, care for him.”
Shawn Michaels has been inducted into the Hall of Fame twice since he retired – once as a singles wrestler and another as part of De-Generation X. The Rockers have no been inducted at all, meaning that Marty Jannetty does not have a single Hall of Fame ring in his position, as opposed to Michaels two.
Hamish is a writer and podcaster and wrestling fan who is a key part of the Atletifo team.
After playing countless hours of WrestleMania X8 on the Gamecube, he discovered Rey Mysterio getting his head crushed by The Great Khali, and thus a love for professional wrestling was born.
He is also a Media Graduate, as well as writing for multiple sites about Premier League football and the culture of Wales – his home country.
