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The Midnight Express is a professional wrestling tag team that has had various members and achieved most of its success in the 1980's.
History
Origins
The Midnight Express was originally formed in 1981 as a six-man tag team with Dennis Condrey, Randy Rose and Norvell Austin in Alabama's Southeast Championship Wrestling. The group's gimmick was that their opponents didn't know which combination they would face in a match since they signed to face the Midnight Express not Condrey/Rose, Condrey/Austin or Rose/Austin.
Eaton/Condrey
In 1983, Condrey left for Mid-South Wrestling and formed a version of the Midnight Express with Bobby Eaton for manager Jim Cornette. They went by "Beautiful Bobby" and "Loverboy Dennis".
Rose and Austin disbanded in 1984 and the Eaton/Condrey version made the team famous with their feuds against the Rock 'N Roll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson) and the Fantastics (Bobby Fulton & Tommy Rogers) in WCCW and the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA)'s Jim Crockett Promotions.
Eaton/Lane
Eaton and Condrey won the NWA World Tag Team Championship in 1986. In 1987, Condrey literally abandoned the team when they were scheduled to appear at an event in Los Angeles and he changed his plane ticket to go somewhere else so he could drop out of sight. He would eventually reappear in the American Wrestling Association. Condrey was replaced by Stan Lane when he suddenly walked off the job. They went by "Beautiful Bobby" and "Sweet Stan". The Eaton/Lane version won the NWA United States Tag Team Titles 3 times and the World Tag Team Titles once.
Original Midnight Express
In late 1988, Condrey and Rose came to the NWA with manager Paul E. Dangerously and called themselves the "Original Midnight Express", "Ravishing Randy" and "Loverboy Dennis". They worked for the American Wrestling Association where Condrey/Rose won the AWA World Tag Team Championship. They eventually headed to the NWA to feud with Eaton/Lane/Cornette.
Eaton and Lane had for a time what many considered the best finishing move in all of wrestling. The "Veg-O-Matic" consisted of Lane bear-hugging an opponent while Eaton ascended to the top rope. When Eaton was in position, Lane would lower the opponent to a horizontal position a few feet above the mat. Sometimes with heavier opponents, Lane would rest him on his knee. Eaton would then jump from the top rope and leg drop the suspended opponent across his neck. If performed correctly it was the most devastating maneuver of its time in tag-team matches, comparing it only to the Road Warriors (Animal & Hawk; Legion of Doom) finishing manuever--the Doomsday Device.
Cornette gave very original names to the Midnights' moves. Besides the aforementioned "Veg-O-Matic", Cornette coined the names "Flapjack" (which is commonplace tag-team move today), "Double Goozle" (a combination school boy/clothesline), "Rocket Launcher" (Two-man press slam as the opponent is whipped off the ropes), and "Divorce Court" (An armbar takedown).
Eaton/Lane disbanded in late 1990 and Condrey/Rose did earlier in the year, leaving no Midnight Express teams.
WWF & Beyond
The Midnight Express name was resurrected by both the then-World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in the late 1990s as a way to try to put over unpopular wrestlers. WWF tried to put together Bob Holly and Bart Gunn together as The New Midnight Express with Cornette as their manager as part of the NWA invasion angle as a way to combat the popular New World Order (nWo) storyline in WCW. They came in as NWA Tag Team Champions. In WCW, they put together their own New Midnight Express with longstanding jobbers "Jumpin'" Joey Maggs and "Hardwork" Bobby Walker. They were managed by Theodore R. Long
Eaton teamed with Rikki Nelson in NWA Mid-Atlantic in 2002 and 2003 as The Midnight Express.
In 2004, Eaton and Condrey reformed the Midnight Express and started wrestling for various independent promotions in the Mid-Atlantic area. They sometimes team with Stan Lane in six-man matches.
Awards
- Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) ranked them at two different spots in the 100 best tag teams during the "PWI Years" in 2003. They ranked Eaton & Condrey at # 21 and Eaton & Lane at # 32. Eaton & Lane also won the PWI Tag Team of the Year Award in 1987.
External links
- Official Midnight Express Site: http://www.theoriginalmidnightexpress.com/
- Official MX Tribute Site: http://www.themidnightexpress.com/
World Championship Wrestling teams and stables | Jim Crockett Promotions teams and stables | World Wrestling Entertainment teams and stables | Smoky Mountain Wrestling teams and stables | Independent promotions teams and stables
"The Midnight Express"