The Piledriver Report 04.15.10: The Shawn Michaels Story – Part One: The Early Days of Shawn Michaels and the Rockers

He is arguably the greatest all-around performer in professional wrestling history. He definitely is among the most controversial wrestler of all-time. He is the “Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels.

While Shawn still puts on some of the best performances in the company, Michaels felt that the time was right for him to step away from the wrestling business for the last time. Unless he changes his mind in the next few months, this leads us to the very real possibility of having a professional wrestling industry without the “Heartbreak Kid” plying his trade. We already experienced this from 1998 until 2002. This was the time of the highly successful “Attitude Era.”

The “Attitude Era” in the WWF featured some of the greatest wrestling action in the company’s history. The WWF was loaded with talent. Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, the New Age Outlaws, Edge/Christian, the Hardys, the Dudleys, the Undertaker, Kane, Mankind, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, and Kurt Angle were many of the top stars that helped lead the WWF past WCW in winning the battle of the “Monday Night Wars.” Sure, this was probably the most exciting time to be a wrestling fan of the WWF. However, something was missing. The missing piece was the “Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels.

While Shawn was still hanging around as the WWF Commissioner, among other roles, HBK was not in the role that the fans’ wanted to see him in. The fans wanted the old Shawn Michaels back. We clamored for the “Show Stopper,” the “Headliner,” the “Main Eventer.” We wanted to see Shawn Michaels dropping the elbow, and super kicking his enemies. We didn’t want to see Shawn as the “Commish.” The fans wanted to see the man who would label himself as the “Icon of Professional Wrestling.”

Long before Shawn became an “Icon,” he started his career by training under Jose Lothario. After training with Jose for about two months, Jose told him the best way to learn is to get in the ring and do it. Shawn Michaels started his professional wrestling career in 1984. Ever since then the fans have been spoiled watching the career of one of the best ever. During the early stages of his career, Shawn bounced back and forth through several different wrestling promotions. He made his wrestling debut in Mid-South Wrestling, followed by a short stint with Texas All-Star Wrestling. He would then move on to Central States Wrestling. He also had several stints in World Class Championship Wrestling.

MID-SOUTH

Shawn Michaels’ very first match took place on October 16th, 1984 in Lake Charles, Louisiana. In his autobiography, “Heartbreak & Triumph: The Shawn Michaels Story,” Shawn recalls his first night in a wrestling lockerroom.

“The wrestlers started coming in. I just sat there quietly. These guys were veterans, however, and they could see immediately that I was new. They started to come by and introduce themselves to me. Robert Gibson & Ricky Morton, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express, Terry Taylor, Jim Duggan, Magnum T.A. They were very kind, but I was intimidated. They were all such men! They looked like men. I was a nineteen year old kid with no hair on my body and plenty of baby fat. These guys had such presence. Even though they were very friendly, I felt like I was a million miles from them.”

Once Shawn explained that he was about to have his first match, it didn’t take long for him to experience his first “ribbing.” “Despite Jose (Lothario) wanting me to wear flashy luchador ring attire, I decided that I would go with a white vest that my mom had gotten me, some white boots, and a pair of black spandex pants. Most guys wore wrestling trunks, but I liked the spandex. The thing was, that’s what Ricky and Robert wore. In the wrestling world, you didn’t steal someone else’s gimmick.”

“Duggan was in the dressing room and he saw me put on my tights and called out, ‘Hey, Rock ‘n’ Roll, we have somebody stealing your gimmick over here.’

I was thinking ‘Uh-oh. What have I gotten myself into now?’

Ricky heard Duggan and he came over, looked me in the eye, and asked, ‘You doing the spandex pants?’

‘It’s all I have,’ I answered very sheepishly.

He hesitated for a minute before smiling and said, ‘It’s all right, kid.’ They were just kidding around, having a little fun with the new guy.”

THE FIRST MATCH

In Shawn’s first match, he took on a wrestler by the name of Art Crews. Shawn explains, “I made it down to the ring and climbed up on the apron. Art was already in there and he was introduced first. I saw him raise his arm when the ring announcer called out his name, so I did the same thing. I think two people clapped when I did that. Art started circling around the ring, and I followed him. Then he came to me and we locked up. ‘Take it easy,’ he told me. His words put me at ease, and we went to have a very basic match. I was able to get in a lot of offense, hip tossing and shoulder tackling him, as well as nailing him with a drop kick. Every time I did something, he would tell me, ‘Good job.’ Seven or eight minutes into the match, he stopped me, slammed me a few times, hit me with a spinning neck breaker, and then pinned me. After our match was over, I started to leave the ring and the ref yelled, ‘Sell your neck, sell your neck.’ So I grabbed my neck and walked back behind the curtain. A lot of guys had been watching, and couldn’t believe that was my first match. Everyone said it was awesome. I was ecstatic. I had had my first match, the other wrestlers liked it, and now I had some idea how things worked.”

ALREADY IN TROUBLE

“I had received my booking sheet from Grizz the first night and saw my name next to a whole bunch of towns, so I figured if my name was next to a town, I would be working there. We shot TV every week in Shreveport, and my name was listed next to the first Shreveport TV booking after my first match. I went there, had my match, and thought everything was fine. Well, I got my next booking sheet there and my name wasn’t listed for the next taping. I figured I wasn’t supposed to be there. The day after the taping I went to meet Ricky and Robert at the Popeye’s to ride to the next town, and they asked me why I wasn’t at the taping.”

“My name wasn’t on the booking sheet,” I said.

“Shawn,” they said with their country accents. “You are full-time. Everyone who is full-time’s got to go to TV. The guys whose names are on the list are extras who are just being brought in for that one TV.”

“I didn’t know.” Bill Watts fined me $50.00 for that mishap. It was the first of many fines I would get in my career.

IT AIN’T EASY BEING GREEN

Almost immediately upon entering Mid-South, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express took Shawn Michaels under their wing. The two offered to have Shawn drive with them from town to town. On those trips, they taught Shawn the “ways of the wrestler.” They taught Shawn about ribbing, verbiage, and a lot of the general principles of wrestling.

Jake Roberts also filled Shawn in on some of the lingo and signals used by wrestlers. “The first time I wrestled Jake Roberts during a TV taping I messed up the match. Whenever he put me in a hold, he wrapped his fingers around my wrist or forearm and squeezed. Every time he did this, I yelled and screamed real loud. He eventually beat me with the DDT, and then after the match he came up to me and said, ‘When I give you the office, you need to reverse it.’

‘What?’
‘You don’t know what the office is?’
‘Yeah, that’s where Bill is. That’s where they do administrative stuff.’
‘No, when I squeeze your arm. That’s the office. That means reverse it.’
‘Oh, I didn’t know. Nobody told me.’
‘Nobody told you?’
‘No.’
‘Well just ask. Don’t be afraid to ask.’ Then he chuckled and walked away.”

After driving with the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express for a few weeks, Terry Taylor asked Shawn to ride with him sometimes. “While Ricky and Robert acclimated me to the wrestling culture, Terry helped me understand how to work in the ring. He explained how to be a babyface and when and when not to show emotion. According to Terry, it was important that I experiment and not get lured into being or doing one thing. ‘Mix it up. Instead of you giving the other guy a tackle at the beginning of every match, maybe he gives you one first, then you bounce up like you didn’t expect that. Keep the fans on their toes.’

‘But I’m the babyface. Isn’t the babyface always supposed to be better then the heels?’

‘Yeah, but you’re going to get better. You’re going to adjust. He’s going to go for that tackle again, but you are going to drop down and when he comes by again, you are going to hit him with a hip toss and then hit him with a tackle and then another one and he’s going to fall out of the ring and you are going to fire up and the fans are going to go ‘Aaaaaah.”

“When I was concerned that fans weren’t making much noise when I was wrestling, Terry told me not to worry. ‘They don’t know you yet. It’s going to take time. Learn the business. Learn how to work. That’s the most important thing.”

An enhancement wrestler named Tony Falk helped Shawn learn the language of carny. However, that wasn’t the biggest revelation that Tony shared with Michaels. One day he told Shawn, “You want to know the future of this business? Working out. This is going to be a body business. In five years, it’s going to be all about the body. The hardest work you’ll ever do in this business is keeping your body in shape.”

KANSAS CITY

It was in Kansas City that Shawn Michaels would meet a man that would change the course of his career. In the Kansas City territory at the time, Marty Jannetty wrestled as the top young babyface. After Shawn’s first week or two in the company, Marty Jannetty approached Shawn to start traveling with himself and Dave Peterson. In Mid-South, Shawn wasn’t into “going out with the boys,” but in Kansas City, it was a different story.

“I was only 19 and sometimes I would be denied entry at the door, but Dave and Marty didn’t care. They would leave and we’d go find a place I could get in. I didn’t get busted very often though, because there was something about Marty that made me carry myself differently. He had a presence about him, and when I was with him, I had it too. When I walked in with him, I stood taller, looked more confident, and was rarely stopped by a bouncer. It wasn’t that Marty was so old. It was simply the way he presented himself. We really didn’t do anything crazy. For me, it was my first time experiencing getting out with the boys and having fun.”

Towards the end of Michaels’ Kansas City run, Marty Jannetty and Shawn Michaels did something together for the first time. The wrestled together in a tag team match. “Marty and I wrestled together in a tag match against Scott Hall and Danny Spivey. We had never worked as a team before, but everything came together when we were out there. It was one of those things where you just say, ‘Wow! That felt nice. We really clicked.’ Sometimes you get in the ring with someone and it feels like a complete struggle. Then there are other times you know there is some magic going on. That’s how I felt with Marty. We jelled. Our timing was in synch and we didn’t have to think about what our next move should be. We knew what the other one wanted to do.”

GOING BACK HOME

Shawn’s trainer, Jose Lothario, called him to ask him to come back to San Antonio. Jjose was booking and promoting Texas All-Star Wrestling. He wanted to bring Shawn in as the hometown boy. For the first time in his career, Michaels was going to be working on the top of the cards. For someone that was only in the business for nine months, Shawn was moving on a fast track. However, that track was about to be derailed.

By the time Shawn got back down to Texas, Jose was pushed out as booker, and Chavo Guerrero (the top heel) was now running the book. The change in booking also led to Shawn getting his first taste of locker room politics. “Chavo came up to me and said, ‘We are going to get you over big-time.’ Hearing those words made me feel great. I didn’t realize Chavo was just blowing smoke up my rear end.”

“I was set to wrestle him at the Freeman Coliseum. In the wrestling business, ‘We’re going to get you over’ means you are going to work with this top heel. But what Chavo decided was going to get me over was a thirty-minute draw. I was fine with that. I didn’t understand that I was getting the shaft. Obviously, I knew winning was much better than losing, but I didn’t know that going to a draw was not necessarily good. You didn’t ask, or I certainly didn’t ask, ‘Where are we going with this?’ I didn’t know any of that. You did what you were told to do that night and that’s what you knew.”

“So when I was told we were going thirty minutes through, I didn’t complain. That was the longest I had gone to that point. I was excited. It was halfway to an hour, and at that time in the business, going an hour was, at least in my mind, what made you a wrestler’s wrestler. So I was half a wrestler’s wrestler, and that was great. It wasn’t till after the fact that I understood that what Chavo did wasn’t going to get me over. At the next TV, I was put in a tag team with Paul Diamond, and the following one, Chavo turned babyface. So much for my singles run on top.”

Despite Shawn’s promise of being the top baby face star not being fulfilled, his tag team with Paul Diamond gave Shawn something he never had before; a tag team championship. While wrestling as a part of the “American Force” tag team was full filing for Shawn, it was time to move on again. This time, he would head to one of the “big three promotions.” Shawn Michaels packed his bags for Minnesota and the American Wrestling Association.

THE AWA AND THE BIRTH OF THE MIDNIGHT ROCKERS

Shawn garnered his first national exposure in the American Wrestling Association, where he teamed with Marty Jannety as the Midnight Rockers tag team. Although, Shawn wasn’t too sure if that was initially the plan.

“I wasn’t sure what Greg and Verne had planned for me when I first came to the AWA. They had mentioned singles, and they had also inquired if I knew Marty. I guess they had some ideas of putting me with Marty. After only two singles matches, Verne told Marty and me that he wanted us to be a team. I think that they were thinking that we could be their version of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express. That was the first time I met with Verne. Marty and I went down to his office to meet him to discuss our name, our image, and what we wanted to do.

Before this meeting, Marty and I had talked about teaming up and what we might do. I had moved into the same apartment complex where he was living, and we talked wrestling all the time. Greg Gagne wanted to call us the Country Rockers. After thinking about it, we both agreed that didn’t work. I was still listenin to my Judas Priest at the time, and really dug a song of theirs called “Living After Midnight.” I told Marty this was the perfect music for us and maybe we should call ourselves the Midnight Rockers. I played the song for him and he thought it was cool. I was so into it. I was telling him you have to listen to the words, we are going to live this thing and we are going to do it.

Then we started to think about what what we would wear. At the time, Marty was wearing long tights with fur tiger stripes, and a tiger stripe around his boots. I liked that and told him that’s what we should go with. We were a little concerned that we might be seen as blatantly stealing from the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express, but we reasoned that since they wore spandex and didn’t wear tiger stripes, we were okay— right!

We told Verne what we had come up with, and I will never forget his response. If you ever want to know why Verne went out of business eventually, all you have to do is keep reading. ‘Do you think the people are going to confuse that name with rocking chairs?’ he asked.

Marty and I were stunned. We looked at each other and said, ‘I don’t think so.’ Verne just didn’t get it. Verne’s question marked a turning point in my career. I began turning away from older guys, reasoning that they didn’t understand us or where the business was going. There was a huge generation gap.

Marty and I started a short time later, and I have to admit that the first time we came out to our music, I felt a bit awkward. Marty could get out there and pump up the crowd and dance. I couldn’t dance, and I had always been the white-meat babyface. I remember being all wanting to come out to the music, bubt when it came on and I had to go to the ring, I felt like I had two left feet.”

What the duo feared came true. The Apter magazines called them a rip-off tag team. We were told they took the “Midnight” from the Midnight Express, and the “Rockers” from the Rock and Roll Express. What these mags didn’t tell you were that Michaels and Jannety were so much more. However, eventually they did take notice. “Pro Wrestling Illustrated wrote an article on us, and they used an insert picture of us on the cover. The title read ‘From Imitators to Innovators.’ It was an acknowledgment that we were not just ripping off the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express, but had developed a whole new style.”

They made tag team wrestling an art form. They would practice wrestling moves by first using dolls. If they were able to visualize the moves, they would have action figures do the moves first, then they knew they can do them. The duo performed double team moves in unison like they were gold medal synchronized swimmers in the Olympics. Their hard work paid off. On January 27th, 1987, the duo beat Doug Somers and Buddy Rose to capture the AWA World Tag Team championships.

Michaels recalls the night that he won his first World Tag Team championship. “Buddy and Doug realized they could keep themselves on top by working with us, so they strung out the chase as long as they could. After all the chasing, winning the titles was a little anticlimactic. The fans waited so long that our feud lost its edge, and they also would rather have seen us win on TV in the Showboat.”

GOING TO THE SHOW, OR ARE THEY?

Their work in the AWA got them noticed by Pat Patterson. Patterson convinced Vince McMahon to bring the two young guns to the big promotion in the Northeast. A couple of months after WrestleMania III, the “Midnight Rockers” made their official WWF debut. Unfortunately for the talented duo, their stint in the World Wrestling Federation would not last very long. According to Shawn Michaels in his DVD “The Shawn Michaels Story: Heartbreak and Triumph,” Jannety and himself were greeted with a cold reception. They had a reputation of being partiers and “punks.” Their first night with the company, the team decided to keep a low profile. However, they were told that they had to go out after the matches and hang out with the wrestlers. They had to be “one of the boys.” They decided to go, and were met by an intoxicated Jimmy Jack Funk. The fake Funk family member started to antagonize Shawn and Marty about the party rep, while he was “chewing glass.” Shawn couldn’t take it anymore, so he broke a glass bottle of his own head as a way of telling him “see we’re crazy.” The Rockers then left. The next night at catering, the team was met by Jimmy Jack Funk. Funk started asking them what their problem was, and started to exaggerate the story from the night before. A few days later, they get a call from Terry Garvin saying that Vince was going to let them go because of the bar incident. Thinking they did nothing wrong, they set up a meeting with Vince. They had on snakeskin boots, and when Vince walked up to them, saw the boots, and said “nice boots. They’re made for walking you know.” He told them he was just kidding. They walked into Vince’s office, and were then fired.

BACK TO THE TERRITORIES

They headed to the Continental Wrestling Federation. During this time, Shawn got depressed from the wrestling business, and started to party harder, and got into the drug culture. It was also during this time that Shawn was thinking about “ending it all.” When Bob Armstrong took over the booking, he informed Shawn and Marty that he was bringing in a new team, and giving them their two weeks notice. The immature Shawn Michaels told him to forget the two weeks; the Midnight Rockers are gone now. From there they headed to Memphis where Shawn’s depression was lifted, as he was having fun again. In Memphis, they soon feuded with the Nasty Boys and the Rock and Roll Express. Soon the Midnight Rockers were bouncing back and forth between Memphis and the AWA. While in the AWA, the Midnight Rockers would beat Dennis Condrey and Randy Rose for the AWA Tag Team titles on December 27th, 1987. They would win the belts a third time in a match against the Rock and Roll Express on February 22nd, 1988, after the titles were held up on February 15th, following a controversial match between the same two teams.

“Unbeknownst to us, Pat Patterson had been going to Vince and asking if he would bring us back. Pat told Vince how we had turned heel and done a great job. He thought things would be different if we were given a second chance. I think he worked on Vince for a while. Something Pat said must have worked, because shortly after we quit the AWA, Vince called and told us, ‘I’m bringing you back. I’m getting a ton of heat for it, and if you do absolutely anything wrong, you will be gone forever.’ He let us know that we were on double, double secret probation.”

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From green rookie to working the indies to forming a dynamic tag team with Marty Jannety, Shawn Michaels career was just getting started. Part Two in the look back at the career of Shawn Michaels examines his early years in the WWF and the birth of the “Heartbreak Kid.”