horrorfan_1986

Seeing a few mentions of this in the best beat downs thread, I really wanted to talk more about this excellent angle. For anyone who doesn't know, back in late 1991, The Rockers started to have some problems. There was the Survivor Series match where Marty accidentally hits Shawn's head with Jerry Sags' leg during a body slam which allowed Shawn to be pinned. Things continue to get worse when they had a tag team title match with the Legion of Doom. At the tail end of the match, Animal had Marty in position for a body slam. Shawn went to dropkick Marty's back in order to cause Animal to fall so Marty could get a pin attempt. However, Animal was able to move just enough that caused Michaels to hit the dropkick on him. The Road Warriors would end up picking up the win. Finally, during a match with Ric Flair, Shawn was hurt and laying outside of the ring. Fearing that his partner would be counted out, Marty Jannetty ran out to throw his partner back into the ring. Flair quickly got the win. For their last month (Or so) together, the commentators began talking about Shawn possibly leaving to a singles wrestler. All this lead to the Barber Shop Show hosted by Brutus Beefcake. After a little arguing, The Rockers seemed to have fixed their problems with both guys wanting to continue being a team. Shawn would then hit a super kick on Marty turning heel. In one of the more shocking moments of the 90's, Shawn then proceeded to throw Marty through the Barber Shop window. With that, The Rockers were done and Marty would not be seen again for most of the year.

At that time, young Jim had never seen something so "Extreme" before. Heel turns were not out of the norm, but to throw someone through a window? The heel turn remains one of the best of all time, not only for it's impact that moment, but for ushering in the singles career of Shawn Michaels. While it would take Michaels some time, he would eventually be one of the more over acts in the entire company. As much as I'd love to downplay Michaels', this entire angle starting in late 1991 and continuing on through Michaels' early heel career is one of my favorite angles ever.


The Rockers vs The Natural Disasters


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The Rockers vs Kato and The Brooklyn Brawler - Shawn shows heel tendencies


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Survivor Series Miscommunication


Shawn Michaels vs Ric Flair


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The Rockers vs jobbers - Shawn wrestles the whole match by himself


The Rockers vs The Legion of Doom.


The Barber Shop Breakup

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Crest Fall

Yeah that really was a great piece of booking there. I always thought it had a nice build (and an even better climax) but I'd never actually gone back and saw how it happened match-to-match. Great post.

Rep +.

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Mikk

As a youngster, this is one of the things i still remember now, this and Papa Shango cursing the Warrior.


Was shocking for me as they were one of my favourite tag teams and to see this happen was totally unexpected.


And BTW, none of the vids work, you have to go to Youtube to actually watch them.

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The Brain

Yeah, this knocked my socks off when I was a kid. I was so relieved to see them shake hands and hug, then wham! I was pissed at Michaels for months.

Also,

Brain: "JANNETTY TRIED TO DIVE THROUGH THE WINDOW TO ESCAPE!"

That's just priceless.

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horrorfan_1986

If there was only one thing I'd change about the angle was that Marty stuck around so we wouldn't have to wait so long to get a real feud. Especially looking back at 1992, Shawn seemed to be somewhat lost in what to do. However, once the Marty feud got going, his character really started to shape up well.

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The Brain

Yeah, I didn't get that either. Nowadays, that feud would have begun the very next week, or the week after at the very latest. The split and turn seemed pointless for months. Were they just wanting Marty to sell injuries for that long, or did Marty have legit injuries, or did they just not know how to follow up?

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horrorfan_1986

Marty was a fuck up and was fired due to substance abuse. Just like he would the next year.

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The Brain

Ah, well that explains a hell of a lot. I wasn't familiar with Marty's career. I waited forever to see Marty give Shawn what for, and actually stopped watching before he finally got some measure of revenge.

So, Shawn's singles career floundered because Marty was a genuine fuck up. Interesting. Shawn's singles career didn't really get going, imo, until Sherry was on his arm. This is in retrospect, of course. I stopped being a fan of Shawn's character as soon as he kicked Marty. The pretty boy gimmick never sat well with me, and it never will. However, I'm still a fan of his as soon as his stupid entrance music shuts off.

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horrorfan_1986

So basically a month?
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Their angle together started on the Feb 1st edition of Primetime on The Funeral Parlor.

Official cause of Jannetty's absence:

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The Brain

Wow.. I didn't realize it was that soon. Sherry did give Shawn a huge rub, though, (get your minds out of the gutter) seeing as how she'd seen over the frickin' Macho King, a main eventer. After that, he started putting on MOTY according to PWI. The rest is history.

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