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.
Is Marty Jannetty In The WWE Hall of Fame?
Marty Jannetty has not been inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, despite his partner Shawn Michaels have two Hall of Fame inductions under his belt.
While Jannetty has not done enough in his singles career to earn an induction by himself, it was expected that he would be given his Hall of Fame ring as part of a duo, alongside Shawn Michaels as The Rockers. While the pair never won the WWE Tag Team Championships, they inspired a generation of wrestlers and helped create a new, faster-paced style of wrestling in the WWE
The WWE have been inducting tag teams since 2006, when The Blackjacks (Black Mulligan and Blackjack Lanza) were inducted by a speech from Bobby Heenan. Since then, a number of teams have been given the nod, including The Road Warriors, The Wild Samoans and The Bushwackers. They also have honored factions, such as the Four Horseman, the New World Order and D-Generation X.
D-Generation X is how Shawn Michaels earned his second Hall of Fame ring. He first got the nod as a singles star in 2011, before going in again alongside Triple H, X-Pac, Billy Gunn, Road Dogg and Chyna in 2019. This made. He has the chance to be the first person to go in three times, but it seems unlikely that Marty Jannetty will go into the WWE Hall of Fame.
Marty Jannetty has had some controversies over the years. From his drunken ramblings on Facebook, claiming to kill a man and wanting to have sex with his daughter, and even a Dark Side of the Ring episode based on his life, controversy has not been far away from the former Rocker.
According to Marty Janetty, he was told by the WWE that he needed to change before being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame – although like his other social media posts, it is not clear whether this is the truth, or just more ramblings about nonsense.
“I GOTTA CHANGE. Evidently, according to a call I got last night from a ‘high up’ with some company based out of Stamford, CT I got to change.”
Marty Jannetty on a potential WWE Hall of Fame induction.