Jimmy Hart was brought into The Central States area to manage The Grapplers, and The Uptown Boys countered with a female manager named Honey. This led to a "Chicken-Suit" match, which I will mention in more detail in a future column. I don’t know whatever became of this Tommy Rogers or of Honey, they both left the Central States area in 1984.

The Uptown Boys won the Central States Tag Team titles twice, defeating The Grapplers on June 21, 1984 in Kansas City and The Grapplers regained the belts on July 26, 1984 in Kansas City. The Uptown Boys beat The Grapplers again on August 23, 1984 in Kansas City and they were beaten by the team of Mr. Pogo and Gypsy Joe on October 11, 1984 in Kansas City.

I wasn’t taping All-Star Wrestling in 1985. I’m pretty sure that was the year that the VCR broke, and it took a few years before we bought another one. Still, without the luxury of having this on tape, I remember it pretty clearly. As All-Star Wrestling went to break, they sometimes showed where they’d be heading for the coming week or other times they would promote the big card on Thursday in Kansas City that they did their TV taping from. Kevin Wall was standing next to Marty Jannetty and said something like this.

Kevin Wall: We have a youngster coming to The Central States area and because of his amazing won/loss record, he is getting an immediate Central States Title shot. Marty Jannetty, please help me welcome... Shawn Michaels.

Now, I had seen Shawn Michaels on Mid-South TV and quite honestly, I wasn’t too impressed. He was a skinny kid that didn’t look to weigh 200 pounds. He didn’t look quite old enough to be out of high school, and I honestly don’t recall seeing him win ANY matches on Mid-South Wrestling. I understand that Shawn also wrestled in World Class before coming to the Central States area, and he was a jobber there too.

So, I started laughing after Kevin Wall said that. I just couldn’t believe what "amazing won/loss record" they were talking about. Of course, the writers here for the Mid-South and World Class areas are more knowledge about Shawn’s tenure there, and I certainly won’t dispute them if they say that Shawn won his fair share of matches. I certainly didn’t think at the time that Shawn deserved a title shot against Mr. Pogo that quickly. Shawn Michaels didn’t win the belt from Mr. Pogo but he and Marty started teaming together, and possibly they first called themselves "The Midnight Rockers" in the Central States area, though I’m not for sure on that. Marty and Shawn won the Central States tag team titles once on May 15, 1986 in Kansas City by defeating Brad and Bart Batten. The Batten Twins regained the belts on May 22, 1986 in Kansas City.

Marty Jannetty received the call from The AWA and Marty and Shawn went there and became two time AWA World Tag Team Champions on January 27, 1987 in St. Paul, Minnesota by defeating "Playboy" Buddy Rose and "Pretty Boy" Doug Somers. The Midnight Rockers lost the belts to Soldat Ustinov and Boris Zukhov in Lake Tahoe, Nevada on May 25, 1987. The Midnight Rockers won the belts the second time by defeating The Original Midnight Express, "Loverboy" Dennis Condrey and "Ravishing" Randy Rose in Las Vegas on December 27, 1987 and they lost the belts to Badd Company, Paul Diamond and Pat Tanaka in Las Vegas on March 19, 1988. They went to the WWF as The Rockers and won the WWF World Tag Team Titles from The Hart Foundation in 1990 and they held them for a week in a disputed match and the belts were returned to Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart. Once The Rockers broke up, Shawn Michaels’ career skyrocketed.

The man they call "Crazy", Luke Graham