9 Things WWE Experimented With On House Shows But Never Went With

3. The Rockers As Tag Team Champions

Brock Lesnar Jesse Ventura
WWE.com

For energy and excitement, there are few tag teams who come close to the in-ring exploits of The Rockers. Sure, it may more often than not be the out-of-ring exploits of Marty Jannetty and Shawn Michaels that grabbed the attention when reflected back on, but the pair were so fresh and different during their main WWF run together.

According to the record books, The Rockers never managed to become Tag Team Champions during their tenure as a tandem. That was almost so very different, mind, for the call was made to have Jannetty and Michaels defeat The Hart Foundation on a 1990 edition of Saturday Night’s Main Event. And beat The Hart Foundation, they did.

During The Rockers’ championship win, the top rope snapped mid-match. No harm, no foul, right? Being a taped show, officials quickly reattached the broken rope and the match continued as The Rockers emerged victorious.

From there, Marty and Shawn defended the belts at a couple of house shows, yet the notion of The Rockers as Tag Team Champions was quickly dropped in just a matter of days. Deciding to keep the belts on The Hart Foundation – reportedly due to ironing out a contract dispute with Jim Neidhart – Vince McMahon made the call not to air the taped tag match as part of the Saturday Night’s Main Event show.

As such, despite defeating The Hart Foundation and then successfully defending the belts on non-televised shows against Power and Glory, The Rockers as Tag Team Champions never made it to TV.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.