The Demise of the Rockers
by Heath Santo
This past June, Shawn Michaels, who had found religion, reached out to
a suicidal Marty Jannetty and baptized him at the Athletes In Ministry
conference in Phoenix. Years earlier, their run in the WWF saw its
share of politics, first in 1987 when they fell out of favor with the
locker room just days after their arrival. So much so, that
exaggerated stories of their behavior at a hotel bar in Buffalo were
taken to Vince McMahon. Michaels and Jannetty paid for round-trip
airfare from Minneapolis to Stamford with hopes of convincing him not
to fire them.
In the lobby of the WWF headquarters, Michaels sat with his leg
crossed, his snakeskin boot more visible. "Those boots are made for
walkin'," McMahon joked. He then let them go in the meeting that
followed. "I'm doing this for your own good," he said. "If the boys
don't want you here, you won't last."
A year later in the summer of 1988, they were back with the WWF and
racking their brains in a hotel room for hours trying to come up with
a name for the tag team. They had wrestled as the Midnight Rockers in
the AWA, a name the WWF couldn't legally use. The next day at a
television taping, McMahon turned to one of the agents for help, who
said they're called "the Rockers" in the dressing room as a truncated
nickname when they're needed for interviews.
Feather-haired pretty boys who were always in motion, the WWF billed
the Rockers as "tag team specialists." Their first year, they earned
around $170,000. That figure rose roughly $30,000 each year until
1992. Around the same time that ideas on splitting up the team were
being considered, the Rockers' real-life friendship was crumbling.
They had a well-publicized fistfight in a Denver hotel room, but it
was what happened after a commercial shoot in Atlanta that really
divided them.
The Rockers, Natural Disasters, Legion of Doom, and some other stars
were chosen to film an ad for a WWF breakfast cereal. Before the
taping, McMahon had allegedly assured Michaels and Jannetty they'd be
bigger players after they made known their concern over coasting for
so long as a midcard tag team. But after learning they'd be paid only
$5,000 apiece for the commercial while the other tag teams got twice
that amount, a furious Michaels reportedly urged Jannetty to call the
office right from the filming studio to tell McMahon they were
quitting.
McMahon wanted to talk with them about it at TV but they had their
minds made up. "There's no need to keep you where you're not happy,"
he told Jannetty, and arranged for them to finish up in three weeks at
a Survivor Series show. While Jannetty was relieved he didn't hold
them to the standard policy of giving 90 days' notice and then jobbing
them out for three months, Michaels was in disbelief that McMahon
would allow them to walk. He went to McMahon and allegedly told him he
knew nothing about Jannetty's plan to quit. Jannetty confronted
Michaels in a phone call. Michaels told him he couldn't go through
with quitting, with a wife and mortgage in Tampa. Jannetty's place in
Orlando was paid off. When the Rockers got to the next TV, everyone
had heard what happened. Wayne Bloom was said to have even offered to
beat Michaels up.
The Michaels heel turn unfolded in Corpus Christi. He was to superkick
Jannetty and then send him through a window on the set of the Barber
Shop, an interview segment hosted by Brutus Beefcake. Michaels was
stiff with the kick and Jannetty blacked out. He doesn't remember
crashing through the glass. Jannetty wasn't supposed to juice –
McMahon had banned any color at that time to attract the family market
– but legit glass was in the window instead of sugar glass because
they weren't properly marked. He suffered cuts on his forehead, arms,
and belly.
To sell the injury, the plan was for Jannetty to be out six weeks, but
that turned into six months when he had to serve house arrest for a
charge of obstruction of justice with violence. A week after the angle
was taped, he pulled an officer off a stripper the cop was manhandling
after being kicked in the shin. The woman was a friend of Jannetty's
who had been busted selling packets of cocaine in the bathroom of a
Tampa nightclub.
The payback angle had Jannetty coming out of the crowd in Saskatoon to
hit Michaels with his own mirror. The outline of a pink broken heart
on its surface hid a crack that allowed it to break more easily.
Michaels' manager Sensational Sherri took the shot when he pulled her
in front of him.
Michaels and Jannetty were praised for their house show program that
led to the Royal Rumble. Part of agent Jack Lanza's job was to call in
from the arenas and report how the matches went. On several nights he
was heard saying the match was going to steal the show at the
pay-per-view. But their performance when it came time to deliver fell
below expectations when Sherri was booked into the match, disrupting
its rhythm.
McMahon fired Jannetty at the next TV after getting a report that he
was intoxicated and passed out in the locker room at the Rumble.
Jannetty defended himself by saying that all the guys sleep because
they're there at 1:00 with nothing to do for six hours, and challenged
McMahon to test him. Such an offense was considered a big deal because
Jannetty had a no drinking clause in his contract. He had been
drinking when he got into a fight with a hotel desk clerk in Canada
over some change from a bill for Chinese food.
Curt Hennig, a friend of Jannetty's from their Minneapolis days, was
instrumental in getting his job back for him a few months later.
Hennig allegedly told him that it was Michaels who went to McMahon
with the story of Jannetty being drunk and fouling up the Rumble
match. McMahon rehired Jannetty after hearing claims from Hennig that
Michaels was in bad shape the night before the show, reportedly
passing out facefirst in his food from too many somas. Waitresses
panicked and called 911.
While it was clear the office saw star value in Michaels and not
Jannetty, what followed was a role reversal of sorts when Michaels
dropped the IC belt to him as punishment. Several were said to have
been in awe over Michaels' pouting backstage. "He thinks this is
real," one wrestler was heard saying.
