The Midnight Express, along with Jim Cornette, had long been considered one of professional wrestling’s greatest tag teams.
They had two different incarnations, the first with Beautiful Bobby Eaton and Lover Boy Dennis Condry. Sweet Stan Lane replaced Condry, but both versions won tag team gold in various promotions in the southeast.
True tag team specialists Midnight Express didn’t invent tandem offense, but they honed it better than most; they had more than two or three tag team finishers to take out opponents.
The Midnight Express – Elite Before Elite Trending
In the era of pre-taped shows and studio wrestling, fans could always count on seeing Cornette and his Midnight Express with Jim hounding Tony Schaivone and David Crockett on commentary.
It kept them on viewers’ screens and helped them get them over as WCW’s best heel tag teams. The jobbers who worked the studio tapings could expect a beatdown that made Stan and Bobby look good for television.
Fans watching the show could expect at least two or three Midnight Express interviews, with neither Tony nor David able to get a word in with Cornette doing what he does best.
Professional Wrestling’s own Louisville Lip told the world with every breath how great his boys were and ran down the other teams in the company, like their longtime rivals, The Rock-n-Roll Express.
If he wasn’t doing that, he was running around the ring causing chaos. Whether it be his classic loaded tennis rackets, a shoe or a belt, the babyface tag teams were most often in a two-on-three situation.
It got even worse for tag teams with the addition of Jim Cornette’s mama-financed bodyguard, Big Bubba Rogers, who debuted in WCW a few years before his successful World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment run as The Big Boss Man.
In the squared circle, Eaton was the teams high flyer and technician all in one, Condry supplied the rugged toughness to compliment Eaton’s abilities. Sweet Stan Lane would later bring his martial arts skills to pair with Eaton.
At the outset of the match, Beautiful Bobby and Robert Gibson faced off. Eaton smartly worked the referee, falsely claiming his hair or tights had been pulled.
The Rock-n-Roll Express gained the early advantage. They isolated Eaton’s leg and worked it over with frequent tags.
The Midnight Express regained the upper hand and began working on Gibson. Morton primed the crowd to encourage his partner but was so pressed to make a tag that he allowed himself to be illegally drawn into the ring.
This allowed the Midnight Express to toss Robert over the top rope. It would have been a disqualification if the ref hadn’t been trying to force Morton back outside the ring.
Eaton missed his patented elbow from the top rope, which led to Ricky getting the hot tag and cleaning the house. Robert and Ricky nailed their signature Double Dropkick but inadvertently took out Earl Hebner as well.
Big Bubba hit the ring and took out Ricky Morton with a Sidewalk Slam. Stan Lane held Robert outside the ring while Bobby pinned Ricky to take the World Tag Team Titles.
While the Midnight Express celebrated and grabbed their newly won World Tag Team belts, a second referee came down and told Hebner that Bubba had interfered.
The decision was reversed, but that didn’t stop Stan and Bobby from taking the belts and escaping to the back. They would return later in the broadcast to cut what would be a rather unusual promo since their mouthpiece was absent.
Sweet Stan Lane spoke for the group, hilariously claiming they were “good Christian athletes” and that they didn’t do it for their millions of fans.
He stated they did it for their recovering manager, Jim Cornette, a generous man who gives 80 percent of his salary to charity.
They also had a memorable studio match with Cornette and his Lover Boy Dennis and Beautiful Bobby’s version of the Midnight Express. “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes provided commentary along with Tony Schiavone.
Eaton went to work on Gibson’s leg, hanging it outside the ring and nailing it with Cornette’s racket. He eventually tagged in Morton, but Condry and Eaton would isolate him as well.
Professional wrestling’s Jim McEnroe made his presence felt again with a racket shot to the blonde babyface from Tennessee.
Morton went five hole for the hot tag to Gibson who cleaned house igniting the studio fans in attendance. A double drop kick dropped Bobby Eaton, along with the referee, as Gibson made the cover.
Big Bubba got involved with a racket shot and caused the disqualification. After the match ended, the Midnight Express repeatedly nailed Ricky Morton with the tennis racket.
Dusty couldn’t stand it and dropped his headset to hit the ring and save his friends. Bubba climbed the second rope as Dream slid in the ring to apparently cover and shield Ricky Morton.
Rhodes took the majority of Bubba’s big splash. Robert Gibson gained possession of the racket and hit Bubba, who’d ascended to the ropes again to hit both Rhodes and Gibson.
As the Midnight quartet left the ring after their beatdown, the show went to commercial with a shot of a quivering Dusty Rhodes laid out alongside Ricky.
The Midnight Express also feuded with Paul Ellering and his Road Warriors. Their matches were a clash of styles, and it was always interesting to see how they’d turn out. They were a must-see for fans who wanted to see Cornette get some comeuppance.
Hawk and Animal were both physically imposing and had a decided power advantage. The Midnight Express had been long-time heels but late in 1987, the Road Warriors shockingly turned heel.
They turned on Sting in a six-man match and later attacked Dusty Rhodes’s eye with a spike from their shoulder pads.
This made for quite an interesting variant in their rivalry. The fans still cheered for Hawk and Animal even after they brutalized the company’s top two babyfaces.
On the other hand, they could barely bring themselves to cheer Cornette, Eaton, and Lane. With the Warriors on a warpath, the teams went to battle for the World Tag Team titles.
Shortly before the bell rang, Paul Ellering grabbed Jim Cornette off the apron and attacked him. Stan Lane came to his defense which left Bobby alone with the Road Warriors. Animal and Hawk threw him out of the ring and brutalized him for what seemed like an eternity.
Lane evened the odds by attacking Animal with his trademark kicks, but Hawk continued to pummel a bloody Bobby Eaton on the floor. Cornette came through with a timely racket shot, but the Warriors eventually gained the upper hand on a valiant Sweet Stan.
Jim Cornette tried to take Bobby to the back for medical attention, but Eaton made it to his feet and, shoved his manager aside and made his way up to the apron. He tagged in and unleashed a fury of right hands on both challengers.
The fans flew into a flurry of cheers and support for Bobby’s heroic effort, but a running clothesline from Animal ended his comeback.
Winning the World Tag Team titles wasn’t enough for Animal and Hawk as they walloped away on a broken Bobby Eaton after the bell rang.
In their newly minted roles as a babyface team, the Midnight Express and Jim Cornette went on to feud with Paul E. Dangerously and his self-proclaimed “Original” Midnight Express.
Years later, in a podcast interview, Cornette claimed that Dusty Rhode’s booking made that segment so successful.
Jim’s original idea was to have all the members of his team bloodied during the attack, but Dusty told him it would be even more shocking to see only Cornette bleed since they’d seen Lane and Eaton busted open before.
Cornette and his boys were deeply entrenched in their heel roles now, victims of yet another assault, this time in front of a live studio audience.
The following week, in a televised studio interview, Jim Cornette brought out his white, blood-stained suit coat, cut a passionate babyface promo, and challenged Dangerously.
This kicked off the battle of the Midnight Expresses, with both teams claiming the rights to the name and trying to force the other out of professional wrestling for good.
The feud also featured two of pro wrestling’s greatest talkers and managers in: Paul E. Dangerously (Heyman) with his signature brick cellphone and Jim Cornette with his trusty racket.
Even though the series was short-lived, there were a few memorable moments; one of them saw the two meddling managers square off. Jim Cornette was out for payback against
Paul E. and a matchup between the two teams had a stipulation that would allow him five minutes in the ring with Dangerously if his Midnight Express could defeat Dennis and Randy.
Sweet Stan and Beautiful Bobby earned a hard-fought victory, and Cornette got his pound of flesh back as fans roared while he swung away on the man who’d jumped him from behind weeks earlier.
The feud was nixed after a few weeks, according to a Cornette podcast interview, because Dusty Rhodes had been fired as WCW’s lead booker.
Jim Cornette and the Midnight Express will probably long be remembered as one of the greatest heel tag teams of all time, and their babyface run simply added another dimension to what made them so great.
Jim Cornette was a nuclear heat magnet with lips like a buzzsaw and seemingly more one-liners than Rodney Dangerfield. He made wrestling fans boo him and his guys for so long they were almost hardwired to jeer when they heard the Midnight Express theme.
They booed his stalling tactics at the beginning of matches, hugging Bobby and Stan several times before the in-ring action got underway.
Even outside the ring, the tales of Corny and the boys literally having to fight their way out of the arenas are legendary.
It’s as if the babyface version of the Midnight Express literally reprogrammed the fans natural cheering instincts and turned longtime boos into cheers.
It didn’t happen right away, but their ability to see it through all the way through has to be applauded.
The risk involved in making the turn was also noteworthy because if the fans didn’t take to it, they could have fewer bookings, lower house show attendance, and lighter pockets.
Take a look at notable turns in pro wrestling history by big-name singles superstars like Steve Austin and Hulk Hogan. The creation of the New World Order was so shocking, fans flooded the ring with trash while Hogan, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall posed in the ring.
After aligning himself with Vince McMahon, it was a struggle getting fans to boo Stone Cold. He would go on to call his heel turn one of the few things in his career that he regretted.
As risk goes, some returns are instant, and others never fully materialize and pay off. Cornette and the Midnight Express stayed the course, saw their risk pay off, and gained massive sympathy from fans who had previously booed them.
On instinct for almost a decade. Work like that has to be considered yet another diamond in the Midnight Express’s crown of pro wrestling tag team greatness.
