Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty weren’t always popular inside the WWE locker room. One star that had a problem with them was the legendary Andre the Giant. Jannetty explained the issue in an interview with The Hannibal TV.
Check out highlights below:
Making their WWF debut:
The first night in the WWF, we were nervous as hell. We walked in the backdoors and there’s fireworks and explosions going on. People propelling down from the ceiling. The production was just crazy! We were overwhelmed just on that. Then there goes Big John Studd, 6’9″, the first guy that walks by. We had seen him on TV, but to see a 6’9″ guy in person and just walk by and nod? And then there’s Andre’s big ass, 7’4″ looking like a monster from outer space. King Kong Bundy was the smallest one at 6’4″. The first four and then Hogan went by. He was a big dude, a monster. I panicked. I felt like we weren’t fitting in. One Man Gang walked by.
Getting heat with Jimmy Jack Funk:
We made it through that and that night we went to the club in Buffalo. Terry Garvin told us that we had to get in with the guys, so we’re fraternizing and catching up with the boys. Jimmy Jack Funk didn’t like us at first. He thought we were pretty boys. Look at this face, he must’ve been drunk! He was messing with Shawn going, “C’mon, I heard you boys were some badass partiers! Let me see you do this.” Then he takes a glass and bites it. Shawn ain’t never seen it and he’s like “No, no.” Then he shoves Shawn, breaks another glass and goes, “Come on, punk. I thought you could party!” Finally, Shawn takes a champagne glass and breaks it over his head. Then Jimmy Jack was in love. “Oh, you guys are pretty cool!” Then he starts hugging us and is happy because Shawn broke a glass over his own head.
I end up with this one girl and Jimmy Jack goes up to me and says, “Let’s go to Denny’s and get something to eat.” I was hungry, so I was okay with that. He goes upstairs to get his wallet and then the girl, who had a low-cut top and was rubbing on me, she was like “Let’s go, let’s go.” I said we were waiting for Jimmy, but she asked, “Do you want to go with him or do you wanna go with me?” So, I went ahead and got in the car with her. She went the wrong way and had to turn back, so then Jimmy Jack is out there and sees us. He got very upset about this as it happened to be one of his girls. That’s when everything went wrong. He thought I was disrespecting him.
At catering here comes Jimmy Jack right in my face. I still had a buzz going and I was hungover. So, it slipped my mind that it had happened. He goes, “What are you doing, you punk?” It was right in front of everyone, all of the boys. Everyone was watching us. I thought he was kidding since we had a good time that night before the girl, and I was confused while he was yelling at me. “Punk, I know what you did!” He goes, “I know you told the limo driver that I was a jobber and that you should be beating me! That you was a star.” That’s all not true and that’s the worst shit you could say in front of the other guys as we just got there and aren’t family yet. Then Shawn comes up here and he goes, “And this one was throwing drinks at the bartender and getting us kicked out of the place,” which didn’t happen at all. He just destroyed us in front of the boys. Last thing he said to us was, “You’ll see tonight who is the jobber.” Then I looked at the sheet and our first match was against him.
Jimmy Jack has apologized to me since then, but we got let go. After we did our match, and it was good. Jimmy Jack was a very good worker. I remember leaving that night and Vince was like, “Rock ‘n’ roll! Have a good time, but don’t party too much.” Talk about mixed messaging. Then Terry Garvin goes, “Marty, y’all need to pay your own way and fly in to have a meeting with Vince.” He was saying this was a chance to save your job. We did that, flew to Connecticut…but he said that we were done.
Why Andre the Giant had an issue with them:
When we came back a year later, we were scared to death. It’s common courtesy that you shake everyone’s hands. Warrior hated that. He’d go, “God damn, get this shit over with.” However, when we got back we were trying to keep to ourselves and keep quiet. Andre saw it as us being dickheads and thought we were acting better than everyone else. We were just scared.
I didn’t know that was the reason at first. I thought it had something to do with Jimmy Jack. Andre did that with a lot of people. I walked by him every day and would go, “Hey, Andre.” Then stick your hand out for a shake and they ignore you. It was embarrassing, but we kept doing it. Always did. One day, Shawn goes, “Why the fuck do you do that? Fuck him.” We finally won him [over] in England, we had a six-man tag and he would not talk to us before the match. He was just playing cards. When we got out of the ring, his knees were so bad and there were three steps. He got right to it and looked at me, “I don’t think I can make it.” I told him to put his hand on my head and use it as a crutch. He looks for Shawn and goes, “Where’s your partner?” Then he used us to get up the stairs. This is recorded since it was a television, you can see this. Then during the match we covered him since he couldn’t move good. In the back after the match, me in particular, [Andre] goes, “I apologize. You’re a pretty good guy. I’m not sure about your partner.”
Check out the full video below:
Transcription by WrestleZone.com Senior Editor Tyler Treese.
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