The Midnight Express
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- For other uses, see Midnight Express.
The Midnight Express is a professional wrestling tag team that has had various members and achieved most of its success in the 1980's.
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[edit] History
[edit] 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 the so called "Freebird Rule"; which allowed any two members of the team to wrestle their matches on any given night, thus their opponents who had only (kayfabe) signed to face "The Midnight Express", didn't know which combination they would get.
[edit] 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, going by the nicknames "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 World Class Championship Wrestling and the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA)'s Jim Crockett Promotions.
[edit] Eaton/Lane
Eaton and Condrey won the NWA World Tag Team Championship in 1986. In 1987, Condrey literally (and legitly) 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. Stan Lane was broight in as a replacement for the missing Condrey, using the nickname "Sweet Stan". The Eaton/Lane version won the NWA United States Tag Team Titles 3 times and the World Tag Team Titles once. In the fall of 1988, Eaton and Lane became the first tag team to hold the NWA World Tag Team Championship and the NWA United States Tag Team Championship simultaniously (The Steiner Brothers would soon duplicate that feat in February 1991). The combination of Eaton and Lane are considered by many as the most accomplished and innovative tag team in professional wrestling history.
[edit] 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, eventually heading 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 with Eaton then jumping from the top rope and leg droping the suspended opponent across the neck. When performed correctly it was the (kayfabe) most devastating maneuver of its time in tag-team matches, compared only to the Road Warriors (Animal and Hawk) Doomsday Device.
Cornette was known for giving very original names to the Midnights' moves. Besides the aforementioned "Veg-O-Matic", Cornette coined the names "Flapjack" (now a common tag-team maneuver), "Double Goozle" (a combination school boy/clothesline), "Rocket Launcher" and "Divorce Court" (for an armbar takedown).
The team of Eaton and Lane disbanded in late 1990 not long after Condrey and Rose did the same, leaving no Midnight Express teams.
[edit] World Wrestling Federation
The Midnight Express name was resurrected by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in the late 1990s when they put a combination of Bob Holly and Bart Gunn together as The New Midnight Express with Cornette as their manager -- all as part of the "NWA invasion" angle They came in as NWA Tag Team Champions but did not achieve much success (nor did the angle).
In 2002 and 2003 Bobby Eaton began teaming 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.
[edit] Trivia
The Midnight Expresses' intro song was a revamped rendition of the song "Chase" by composer Giorgio Moroder for the 1978 Midnight Express film.
[edit] 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.
