10 Most Criminally Underrated Wrestlers In History
9. Marty Jannetty
Marty Jannetty's legacy is one of a punchline. In having the temerity to not be as a successful as Shawn Michaels, he is held up as shorthand for failure. The Miz is just one of many to use Jannetty as an unflattering frame of reference; reductively, Jannetty is the weak link of a tag team who just wasn't good enough for singles stardom.
There is an element of truth to this. Jannetty, in comparison to Michaels, was bland, fractionally less talented between the ropes, and nowhere near as engaging on the stick. But he shouldn't be defined exclusively by his association with him. Judged on his own merits - a luxury, it seems, few afford him - Jannetty was a superb babyface worker, equally adept at generating sympathy as he was popping crowds with his atypically athletic in-ring game.
As good he was on his day (personal issues stymied his long term prospects and, too often, his short-term motivation), Jannetty didn't have much in the way of headliner credentials - but few do. There is nothing wrong with being a seminal career midcard act, and Jannetty, back in the early to mid 1990s, was an oasis of workrate and grit in a leaden, cartoonish environment.
Exhibit A: Michaels would have made it to the top of the card even if Jannetty hadn't acted as his first foil, but their spellbinding match on the July 19, 1993 RAW was a see-sawing epic of energetic action and emotive suspense.