Long before Shawn Michaels became one of the biggest and most influential wrestling stars of his era, his tag team with Marty Jannetty—The Rockers—was one of the greatest tag teams in the business. Their work spanned NWA territories and the AWA before arriving at their best remembered run as an underdog tag team with fast-paced, high-flying, tandem offense that was ahead of their time. All good things must come to an end, though, and we never would have seen Michaels, the icon of WrestleMania, had the tag team not split up. But what led to their break-up?

The Story Of The Rockers Break Up On Screen

Shawn Michaels Rockers Break Up Barbershop

The Rockers had a long and respected run together but, on paper, didn’t accomplish a great deal. Their lone WWE Tag Team Championship win came in one of the more infamous cases of WWE not recognizing a title reign. (They had their phantom title win in a botched match with the Hart Foundation, after the ring ropes fell apart, leading to a mess of a match that WWE chose never to air.) Their kayfabe lack of success bubbled over in the fall of 1991.

First Shawn Michaels lost a televised match to Ric Flair. The real story was Marty Jannetty rolling an injured Michaels back in the ring, thinking he was helping his partner, only to set him up to get pinned. The dissension worsened at Survivor Series, where Jannetty again accidentally caused his partner to get pinned, leading to a more vocal argument. Finally, The Rockers lost a tag title match to The Legion of Doom, and seemed to blame one another for the failure. This all culminated in a promo segment on Brutus Beefcake’s Barbershop segment, where the two seemed to reconcile, before HBK attacked his partner—officially splitting the team and turning heel in the process.

The Story Of The Rockers Break Up Behind The Scenes

Rockers Shawn Michaels Marty Jannetty Backstage

Shawn Michaels wrote about the end of The Rockers at some length in his book, Heartbreak & Triumph: The Shawn Michaels Story. He described that Marty Jannetty gave Vince McMahon an ultimatum on the tag team’s behalf, because he felt they were underpaid, but that Michaels didn’t appreciate the negotiation strategy. Ultimately, HBK was firm that he wanted to stay with WWE even if Jannetty left, and that set them up to be split up as a team. While Jannetty would hang around WWE in the years to follow, it wasn’t without the tumult of being temporarily let go for allegations of substance abuse, and ultimately getting moved back into the tag team division.

Related: 10 Times WWE Split A Tag Team (& A Member Entered Another Team)

In his book, Michaels acknowledged that Jannetty has his own version of the story that paints Michaels in a much more negative and selfish light. Regardless, the split happened with The Showstopper famously throwing his partner through the window of the Barbershop interview set. Michaels wrote that he’d come up with the idea, inspired by the effect of people getting thrown through bar windows in old Western movies. Michaels wrote that they’d initially earmarked the spot for The Nasty Boys to do it to both Rockers during their feud, but it worked even better for HBK’s big turn to kickstart his singles career.

What Happened After The Rockers Split

Marty Jannetty Vs. Shawn Michaels WWE

The degree to which Shawn Michaels succeeded and Marty Jannetty floundered after The Rockers split set up a new paradigm. For decades to follow, fans would speculate, and The Miz and John Morrison would go so far as to openly cut promos about the less successful alum of a tag team being “The Marty Jannetty” of the pair. HBK, of course, went on to main event four WrestleManias, win two Royal Rumbles, and capture four world titles. Jannetty was a respected mid-card and tag team worker, but never reached beyond that level of success.

Jannetty made a handful of WWE appearances in the latter stages of The Showstopper’s WWE career, including a one night tag team reunion to battle La Resistance and showing up for younger heels to beat him up as they gathered heat for their feuds with Michaels. Michaels and Jannetty have alternately demonstrated heat in speaking out against each other, and shown signs of ongoing friendship. For example, one of the points fans learned from The Young Bucks' book, Killing the Business, was about their relationship with Jannetty, and how it was him putting in a good word with his old friend Michaels that got them opportunities to work with WWE.

In the end, The Rockers factor into wrestling history as more of an early chapter in the illustrious career of Shawn Michaels than for their own greatness. Nonetheless, they were an excellent team in the ring, and had one of the most memorably violent break-ups of any tag team in WWE lore.