Marty Jannetty

[4.0] "Marty was a great athlete and his work with Shawn on the Rockers was admirable. He couldn't cut it as a singles star, however, and I would argue he was given the chance. But with no promo ability and really any kind of star power, we were just left with a great high-flying athlete and not much else. Maybe he was just at the wrong place and the wrong time. In today's world, he might have had a much better career in RoH or AEW. But in the WWF, I don't think he had much of a chance with his given talents."

[10.0] "I was a massive Marty Jannetty fan as a kid, massive. I can remember bringing his Hasbro action figure to 'Show and Tell' in Kindergarten and explaining to the class why he ruled lol. The Rockers to this day is one of my favorite tag teams of all time and after Shawn betrayed Marty, I rooted for Marty so hard during his singles run. Of course, demons got in the way of Marty having the success he should have attained, but any time he stepped in that ring, you could see how awesome he was. He was a truly special talent and it's a shame he didn't have a better career, but I'll always remember him fondly."

[7.0] "Marty Jannetty was the good solid performer in his rockers tag team but never the most incredible. One of the sweetest fast tag teams in their day and then they broken up, given birth to the heartbreak kid. Marty stayed Marty for decades and then got to be the seasoned local independent darling. Always a hack of a hand with a bad ankle but ready to fight anytime. The rocker dropper hits the mark and so does that dropkick, Marty Jannetty."

[7.0] "Marty Jannetty is like the guy in a legendary rock band who isn't the frontman but still shreds on guitar and knows how to keep the party going. As one half of The Rockers, he brought high energy, daring flips, and the kind of mullet that made you believe in the power of the '80s."

[6.0] "Marty was talented but had too many demons that prevented him from not only having a proper feud with Shawn Michaels, but having a consistent career too. It's a shame that his name is synonymous with one half of a tag team that didn't achieve the same success because Jannetty was very good."

[8.0] "One half of the Rockers with Shawn Michaels. Jannetty was a great tag wrestler who never got to his full potential due to his personal demons outside the ring. He's a legend in his own right."

[7.0] "Jannetty was a good worker when he was with Michaels in the Rockers. Unfortunately for him his decisions and luck (God's amusement toy as he describes it himself) hurt his career as he couldn't do anything after. Drugs, injuries and arrests destroyed his WWE career as well as his chances in WCW and other promotions. His in-ring action was very good whether it was 80s 90s and 2000s"

"[7] Marty Jannetty was a great wrestler. I'd have rated him higher had his career panned out different. Whilst he should have been more as a singles star he still leaves behind a very entertaining body of work. That Rockers feud at WrestleMania would have been great"

"Marty Jannetty is very talented pro wrestler. I wish the world had been more kind to him. Rockers set the standard that every tag team today is following. I wish he had wrestled Shawn Michaels on Wrestlemania main event. That would have been a good match."

[7.0] "The original "Jannetty, " kind of an odd accomplishment in itself. Seriously think about this for a minute, how often are great tag-teams discussed and the term "Jannetty" thrown around among fans? Example being: "Oh yeah, they were good, but he's totally the Jannetty of the two." It isn't a particularly glamours term, but wrestling fans know it. That said, Marty Jannetty was an incredible athlete with a lot of promise. WWE gave him a lot of second chances, but the man himself kept finding new ways to screw up his own life. When Shawn Michaels ends up with more stability, something is off. Which brings us to the infamous rumor that Jannetty killed someone in self-defense as a kid. It would certainly explain his self-destructive behaviors, I.E. using drugs to cope with trauma. Yet it could just be the bizarre ramblings of a cocaine fiend. Regardless, his brief reunion with HBK was surprisingly solid and he worked a good match against Kurt Angle. The New Rockers were very underrated, as Al Snow provided some grounding to the group. Being the first man to earn the Jannetty title must count for something. In addition, party Marty was an exceptional high flyer. Things looked pretty good for him in WCW, but the times were changing. A 7.2/10 seems fair. Lot of good historical impact that makes this guy worth discussing."

[7.0] "Good enough wrestler, and was overshadowed by Shawn Michaels after The Barber Shop incident. Though some of promos were good, others were cheesy as well."

[7.0] "Marty Jannetty was a great wrestler until his fear of Shawn Michaels got the best of him and he dived through the Barber shop window to escape him. Then, his career went on a downward spiral from there. But seriously, he was a great talent with a lot of ring skills who had too many demons to overcome. He couldn't cut a good promo, but he wasn't terrible at it either. Known for getting fired more times than most from the WWF, he was given multiple chances to ascend to the top and never really did after his feud with Michaels came to an end."

[7.0] "Very solid junior heavyweight talent, a guy you could certainly build a division around. I like a lot of his stuff in the 90s and his match with Kurt was pretty nice. pretty weird dude from most accounts but he was sweet in ring. His best matches were any of his matches as a Rocker with HBK, his IC title match with HBK and his underrated banger with Dean Milenko on WCW Thunder. Easy 7"

[7.0] "Great wrestler up until the Rockers split and might have been better than Shawn overall but Michaels started to outdistance him after Shawn went on his singles run and Jannetty started letting his substance abuse issues get the better of him. Shawn kept going forward and Jannetty stayed in one place/got lazy. Was hoping that his match with Kurt Angle in 2005 was going to lead to him getting a contract, but his past caught up with him and he wasn't able to commit full term. What made Jannetty so impressive in that match was he was using moves in that match that he NEVER used back in his Rockers days. He's one of the few US wrestlers I can recall adapting their move set years on. Most guys in their 40's would just be doing the same old shtick night in, night out. A lot of wasted potential on a guy who was still trying to party like he never left his 20's."

[9.0] "Had a gimmick of a fun loving pretty boy who had twisted steel, sex appeal, and just loved to rock n' roll all night, and party every single day -- which absolutely worked because the ladies loved the rockers lol. As far as an in ring worker, when he was a tag team wrestler alongside Shawn, I felt he was very innovative, always looked for unique ways to pull off different moves, had a great fire about him, and his comeback off of the hot tag I can still remember in my head now as if I just saw it (and it's been 30 yearssince the rockers were together lol). Once he became a singles, he became one of Vince's measuring sticks to test out the new guys coming in because of how great of an in ring talent he was. They would bring guys in, give them gimmicks, put them with Marty on tv in either their debut match or one of their first matches in the company, and if he couldn't get a good match out of them they didn't last long. I remember vividly Ludvig Borga, Goldust, and a few others were all put with Marty in their initial matches in the company, and Marty worked his ass off to make them look as good as they could possibly look just like he did with other opponents."

[5.0] "He's so hard to rate because his in-ring skills were good (even in 2005), but he could never put it together and was fired by everybody at least 20 times."

[7.0] "Marty is a pretty good though unmemorable wrestler when not teaming with Shawn Michaels. His behavior outside of the ring will always be remembered."

[8.0] "Marty likes to party! Unfortunately, that particular trait has always had an iron fisted grip on his potential. Almost all of us in the late 80's/early 90's thought *HE* would be the break out star of the pairing with Shawn Michaels, oops. Someone said it best, maybe it was Shawn himself: The fans hated Shawn for turning on Marty, more than they loved Marty. Make sense? While his career never went the way we all thought it would, none of his work is "bad". The team with Al Snow was actually underrated, the work was good - but the gimmick sucked. Almost all points earned on the team of The (Midnight) Rockers; their stuff is MANDATORY viewing, bucket list wrestling you MUST experience. Poor dude is a total train wreck these days, I do not recommend you go there.... best to live in the past here. 7.75 rounded up."

[5.0] "A promising team wrestler who had great potential in the early nineties, but partly through his own fault could not become a bigger star. Marty achieved success mainly as a tag team specialist and he became a household name in wrestling circles. Despite the fact that he was IC and tag team champion after that, he still remains just "the second of the rockers", which says a lot about his career. As for me, he's just a pretty decent wrestler, but nothing more."

[7.0] "I always enjoyed Marty's work, both in tag and singles division. Actually very underrated in fact. He was a hot babyface after his return in late '92 coming off The Rockers' split. And would've been a huge deal as well had he not fuck himself up several times over the years."

[7.0] "Big fan of Jannetty, not just as a tag team wrestler but solo as well. He put on some damn solid matches while he was in WCW, even though he was completely ignored there and really just used as a midcard jobber for up-and-comers to work through. Wished he'd gotten a bigger push in the late 90s."

[6.0] "He was an amazing talent and really could've been way more than just a tag team wrestler because that is all people recognized him as. People just ignore the fact that he was Intercontinental Champion at one point and still they just think of his name and automatically say "Oh yeah, the other guy from The Rockers" and it is just sad to hear."

[6.0] "Everything he did that involved Shawn, either teaming or feuding was great. Everything else not so great."

[5.0] "Marty was probably the very standard of the lesser man in a tag group: Shawn didn't need him to be a star, and he was pretty much hopeless without having his talent around to keep them both afloat. Sure, he had some decent matches and he wasn't a bad worker in his hey-day, but you'd never see anything remarkable about him. He's a good tag specialist, nothing more."

[7.0] "He was a great in-ring talent. The guy could really really wrestle and was very consistent throughout most of his career: he's one of those guys who may not have many memorable 10/10 matches to his credit but who entertained crowds with a long string of 7/10 and 8/10 matches every week for years. A great addition to any show he was one. However once the match stopped, so did Marty Jannetty. His promos felt forced and awkward at the same time and he was the very definition of a charisma black hole. In many ways he reminds me of the present NJPW Tiger Mask: a great great in-ring performer with a surprising longevity (especially considering his issues with substance abuse) but completely devoid of any star quality outside of the ring."

[5.0] "Someone who's name can be added as a noun in a dictionary, so he's got that going for him. Jannetty was good in the ring, but if a team splits, it's hard for someone not to become the Jannetty of the dup. And Marty was it. Never did much to speak of after the Rockers split. He never reinvented himself or found a new persona to make the way HBK did. He was always seen as a guy desperately trying to hang on to the Rockers even though they were dead. That's not a good look."

[6.0] "Jannetty has become the go-to standard for describing the guy who started in a team and never accomplished anything more while their former partner went on to become successful. I honestly think if it weren't for that fact, and Shawn Michaels in general, Jannetty would be pretty much forgotten these days. Good in the ring, really dull talker and lacking in charisma though."

[7.0] "Marty is a guy whose name has become synonymous with wrestlers in tag teams who get totally outshined by their partner when they become singles stars. That's a shame, because Marty was a far more solid worker than Shawn, who made opponents look good with his working ability rather than throwing himself around the ring like a pinball"

[9.0] "If anyone is the equivalent of Randy "The Ram" Robinson, it is this man. A career with as many great performances as there were setbacks. An underrated gem of this industry. Had a lot of demons, but even more talent."

"I like the look of Marty Jannetty. He did good matches with Shawn Michaels as a legendary tag team and against him. He's involved in one of the most shocking angle of pro Wrestling history."

[7.0] "Maybe not great, but over a long period of time, Marty was very consistent in the ring. Even in his last WWE work, he was having good outings (I remember a particularly great one with Kurt Angle on Smackdown). He seemed to just be stuck with an inordinate amount of bad luck compounded by his own personal issues. Even still, I always liked his work. Marty was good."

[9.0] "Great tag team wrestler with the rockets and new rockers, hugely underrated and really should have had a far better push."

[4.0] "I personally am not a big Jannetty fan. I like what he does in the ring and appreciate his matches a lot more than many others but I am not somebody who will go out of my way to watch something he is in. Marty Jannetty was a gifted wrestler who could very well have been a success story if it weren’t for his various problems involving drugs, arrests and the Chris Austin incident. I am surprised the WWE gave him so many chances with all the problems he had but then when you consider the potential he had, well I guess you can’t really blame them. It will always be a case of what could have been when you talk about Jannetty but when you can’t get your personal life straight it is hard to have a healthy professional one. In the end he will more known for the term "the Jannetty of the team" then for his actual in-ring achievements."