In early 1986, both Marty Jannetty and Shawn Michaels were signed by the American Wrestling Association (AWA). The two were paired up and were originally given the name "U.S. Express" (as told by Marty during an interview on AWA television that aired in 1986) until settling on The Midnight Rockers.
The two started wearing identical outfits and develop the ”fun-loving pretty boy” gimmick they would be known for throughout their time together. After wrestling on the lower end of the card to get the fans familiar with the team the Midnight Rockers soon moved onto a feud with the team of Doug Somers and Buddy Rose, who at the time were one of the top teams in the promotion. Their initial outing with Somers and Rose at the WrestleRock stadium show on April 20, 1986 did not go well for Jannetty and Michaels who lost. When Somers and Rose beat Scott Hall and Curt Hennig for the AWA World Tag Team Championship, the Midnight Rockers suddenly found themselves chasing the main tag team titles of the promotion. The Midnight Rockers teamed up with Curt Hennig to defeat Somer, Rose and Alexis Smirnoff at ”Battle by the Bay” on June 28, 1986 to prove that they were indeed capable of beating the champions. The Midnight Rockers would repeatedly challenge Somers throughout the rest of 1986, but were never quite be able to get the win when the title was on the line. Finally near the end of that year, Jannetty and Michaels defeated the champions in a ”non-title” steel cage match on December 25, 1986 on the AWA's ”Brawl in St. Paul” show. A month later on January 27, 1987, the Midnight Rockers defeated Rose and Somers for the AWA Tag Team Titles. The Midnight Rockers would eventually lose the tag titles to the unproven duo of Boris Zhukov and Soldat Ustinov on May 25, 1987.
The team made their first World Wrestling Federation (WWF) appearance in 1987 only five days after dropping the AWA Tag Team titles at a house show in St. Paul, Minnesota, where they challenged the then-WWF World Tag Team Champions The Hart Foundation for a title match. Four days later, the Midnight Rockers wrestled at their first television taping for WWF Wrestling Challenge, defeating the team of Jose Estrada, Sr. and Jimmy Jack Funk. This match was their one and only taped appearance for the WWF as they were released after only a few short weeks with the federation; the Rockers also had some matches house shows against The Shadows.
On December 27, 1987, The Midnight Rockers defeated The Original Midnight Express (Dennis Condrey and Randy Rose) for the AWA World Tag Team Titles. Before they left the AWA once again, they lost the AWA Tag Team Championships on March 19, 1988 to Badd Company (Pat Tanaka and Paul Diamond).
By the end of May 1988, the team was working for the WWF again, this time under the shortened name The Rockers. They officially made their television debut on the June 18, 1988 edition of WWF Superstars of Wrestling in a squash match. The Rockers made their pay-per-view debut at the 1988 Survivor Series as part of the ten-team tag match. They eliminated The Bolsheviks from the match before being eliminated by double-disqualification in a brawl with the Brain Busters. The brawl between The Rockers and The Brain Busters led to a match taped for WWF Superstars of Wrestling where both teams were disqualified once again, this time before the match could really start. This led to a series of house show matches between the two teams. The Brain Busters narrowly defeated The Rockers, as Arn Anderson held down Marty Jannetty's leg as Tully Blanchard pinned him. The feud continued to rage on as they clashed at Saturday Night's Main Event XX in a match that saw both teams counted out for brawling on the floor.
They competed against The Twin Towers, Akeem and Big Boss Man, at WrestleMania V. In spring 1989, The Rockers started a storyline with The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers that kicked off with an underhanded attack on Michaels during a match. The Rougeaus assaulted Michaels with manager Jimmy Hart’s megaphone and drew blood. This storyline put The Rockers' issues with The Brain Busters on the back burners while The Rockers and the Rougeaus fought. The issue between The Rockers and Rougeaus was the storyline reason for introducing the “Iron Man match” to the WWF. Despite wrestling five Iron Man matches against each other, none of the matches were ever televised. On August 28, 1989, the Rockers/Rougeau feud made it to pay-per-view as the Rougeaus teamed with Rick Martel to defeat The Rockers and Tito Santana at SummerSlam.
In late 1989, The Rockers and The Brain Busters resumed their feud after The Brain Busters lost the WWF Tag Team Championship to Demolition. On November 23, The Rockers faced Arn Anderson as part of the 4-on-4 elimination matches at Survivor Series. Prior to the match, Tully Blanchard was released, forcing manager Bobby Heenan to wrestle in his place. The Rockers and The Brain Busters had one last match at Saturday Night's Main Event XXIV where they defeated The Brain Busters two falls to one. After the match, Bobby Heenan fired the team in a backstage segment to explain why the team disappeared from the WWF.
In December 1989, The Rockers feuded with The Powers of Pain until February 1990. At the Royal Rumble in January 1990, both men competed in the Royal Rumble match. However, neither Michaels nor Janetty was victorious in their attempt, being eliminated by the Ultimate Warrior and Ted DiBiase, respectively.
In April 1990, The Rockers faced new competition in the form of Tanaka and Sato, the newly signed team known as The Orient Express. The two teams kicked off a prolonged feud that started at WrestleMania VI and continued off and on for well over a year. When Sato decided to leave in December 1990, the WWF decided to team Tanaka up with his former partner Paul Diamond under a mask. Tanaka and Diamond had previously teamed as Badd Company and won the AWA Tag Team Championship from The Rockers. The Rockers and The Orient Express had a high profile, high flying match at the Royal Rumble.
The Rockers never officially held the WWF Tag Team Championship, but on October 30, 1990, Jannetty and Michaels did actually defeat the reigning champions The Hart Foundation in a two-out-of-three falls match in Fort Wayne, Indiana to seemingly win the titles. The WWF never officially recognized The Rockers' champion status. During the match, the top rope broke by accident making the match a disjointed affair that would require serious clean up before it could be shown on television. The Rockers defended the WWF Tag Team titles against Power and Glory (Paul Roma and Hercules) on November 3, 1990. Shortly after November 3, it was decided to not air the title change and that the title would revert to the Hart Foundation.
After teaming together since 1985, The Rockers split up in December 1991. During a singles match between Michaels and Ric Flair, Jannetty rolled Shawn into the ring to get pinned. Michaels took this as Jannetty costing him the match instead of helping out. At the 1991 Survivor Series, Jannetty caused Michaels to be eliminated by accidentally slamming one of the Nasty Boys into him after which The Rockers argued. After the buildup, The Rockers wrestled one last match on television, a title shot at The Legion of Doom which The Rockers lost after which Jannetty and Michaels argued over who was to blame.
The final split came on Brutus Beefcake’s Barbershop (taped on December 2, 1991, and shown on January 12, 1992) where Beefcake interviewed The Rockers about their recent problems. After seemingly working their problems, Michaels suddenly superkicked Jannetty, before sending him through the glass window of the barbershop set. Michaels also proceeded to rip a full page picture of the group in half, signifying the separation. It also prevented Jannetty from entering the Royal Rumble in 1992.
Michaels and Jannetty were supposed to feud following the breakup, but Jannetty was suspended by the WWF on January 25, 1992. While Jannetty was away, Michaels began developing his “Heartbreak Kid” heel persona including getting Sherri Martel as his manager. Michaels also won the WWF Intercontinental Championship from The British Bulldog. On the October 31, 1992 (taped October 12, 1992 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) edition of WWF Superstars, Michaels was in the ring posing before a match, admiring himself in a mirror that Sherri brought to the ring. To everyone's surprise, Jannetty came down through the crowd and entered the ring. Jannetty attacked Michaels, grabbed the mirror and tried to hit Michaels with it. But Michaels pulled Sherri in front of himself so that she got hit with the mirror instead. This led to Sherri being hospitalized from the glass shards. When Sherri returned from her “recovery”, she turned on Michaels and actually backed Jannetty in his unsuccessful attempt to take the Intercontinental Title away from Michaels at the 1993 Royal Rumble. After the loss, Jannetty was fired by the WWF.
During an episode of Monday Night Raw on May 17, 1993, Jannetty returned to the WWF during an impromptu challenge. Jannetty defeated Michaels to win the title (with the help of Mr. Perfect). Three weeks later Jannetty lost the title back to Michaels in an untelevised house show thanks to the interference of Michaels’ new bodyguard Diesel. After losing the title, the Michaels/Jannetty feud petered out with Michaels focusing on other title challengers while Jannetty wrestled on the mid-card until leaving the WWF in the Spring of 1994.
On the SmackDown! shown on March 10, 2005 (taped two days earlier), Kurt Angle announced that as part of his preparation for his WrestleMania 21 match against Michaels, he would face Michaels old partner Jannetty on the following SmackDown. The following Monday, March 14, 2005, Jannetty made a surprise appearance on WWE Raw and, for one night, The Rockers reunited to take on La Résistance (Sylvain Grenier and Rob Conway). Jannetty got the win with the Rocker Dropper after Michaels hit Sweet Chin Music on Grenier. Three days later on SmackDown, Angle had promised to make Jannetty ”tap out”, just like he was going to make Michaels tap out at WrestleMania 21. Angle made good on his promise and forced Jannetty to submit to his ankle lock submission hold, but only after a nearly twenty-minute match and an impressive showing for Jannetty which saw him nearly pin the Olympic champion.
On the February 20, 2006 edition of Raw, Michaels was pitted against four of the five members of the Spirit Squad in their in-ring debut. After he had connected with Sweet Chin Music, Michaels was attacked by all five members until an unknown man came storming in to the ring to defend Michaels. During the melee, it was revealed that it was Jannetty coming to defend his former tag team partner. Later on Raw, Mr. McMahon came out to mention that he would offer Jannetty a full-time contract. However, McMahon added a stipulation: Jannetty had to join McMahon's "Kiss My Ass Club" the following week on Raw. On Raw, Jannetty refused to indulge McMahon. McMahon instead offered Jannetty the possibility of breaking Chris Masters' signature submission hold, the Master Lock. Jannetty appeared to almost break the hold, but McMahon (who was officiating) delivered a low blow, and Jannetty was never able to break it, only being released when Michaels ran in to save him. Shortly after Michaels had saved Jannetty, Shane McMahon ran in the ring with a steel chair and knocked out Michaels. The former Rockers were supposed to continue a program with the McMahons, but Jannetty was absent from the next edition of Raw.
In December 2007, Michaels began feuding with Mr. Kennedy. Kennedy was set to face off against Jannetty at the Raw 15th Anniversary Spectacular. Kennedy won the match, but continued beating down Jannetty. Michaels then came out to save his former partner from a beating. Before Michaels had a chance to get in the first punch, Kennedy quickly recognized Michaels and started an assault on him until Triple H, Shawn's D-Generation X partner, came out and Kennedy escaped.