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Review: Rock-N-Roll Never Dies

Posted: Jul 27th 2014 By: Alan Wojcik

Pop quiz wrestling fans: name for me the best heel tag team of the 1980?s? Who did you answer with? The Hart Foundation? Powers of Pain? Demolition? Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard? The Midnight Express? Ivan & Nikita Koloff? Now name for me the hottest babyface tag team and all of you better answer THE ROCK N ROLL EXPRESS AKA RICKY MORTON & ROBERT GIBSON. The Road Warriors might have been 1B to the RNR being 1A but no one was over more than Ricky & Robert in the territories that still existed. The creators of ellbowproductions.weebly.com have gotten together and created a brilliant documentary on the duo called ROCK N ROLL NEVER DIES: THE TRUE STORY OF THE ROCK N ROLL EXPRESS.

Here is the list of people interviewed for this feature besides Ricky & Robert includes: Jim Cornette, Bobby Eaton, Dennis Condrey, Bill Dundee, Ivan Koloff, Magnum TA, Baby Doll, Jimmy Valiant, George South, Tommy Young, Tom Pritchard, Beau James & Les Thatcher.

There were many great tag teams in the territories like Mid South, Jim Crockett Promotions and the AWA plus WWF but until Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson met in the Memphis (thanks to Jerry Jarrett/Jerry Lawler & Jimmy Hart) no one had taken the American wrestling fans on an emotional roller coaster the duo would run. Both Ricky & Robert grew up with family members in the business, so it was second nature to them.

After they formed they started out in Memphis but were placed in the second slot due to the popularity of the Fabulous Ones (Steve Keirn & Stan Lane). But when they were paired with the legendary trio of ?Loverboy? Dennis Condrey, ?Sweet Stan Lane (Stan arrived in 1987 from Florida) & ?Beautiful? Bobby Eaton, it would change tag team wrestling forever. They changed the way you told the babyface/heel story. They would take it across America unbelievably to this day as I type this. They fought in Memphis, Mid South and JCP/NWA drawing record crowds everywhere they worked. When the RNR and Midnights arrived in JCP they were put into a different stratosphere thanks to the TV shows on Superstation WTBS and their World Championship Wrestling (6:05pm every Saturday).

In the Crockett promotion the two teams would run in sold out arenas that would create jealously from Ric Flair & Dusty Rhodes. Ricky would be booked to work and almost win the World Heavyweight championship during the Great American Bash 1986 and the sell outs would continue through a ?Summer Sizzler Tour.?

Their popularity was so huge they their own security 24/7, had fences put up at arenas to keep fans from climbing on their cars and had lines of groupies miles long. Who knew they had a ?fan club? yet got screwed out of money by Jim Crockett?? An argument over that would lead to an exit of the RNR from the promotion and help the NWA/JCP go bankrupt if you believe the RNR. A horrible knee injury to Robert would stop the RNR in its track and lead Ricky to be Richard Morton of the York Foundation.

I?m not going to give away anything else from the near two hour documentary except it?s the definitive history on the duo and could also be a companion piece to any Midnight Express documentary. Director Michael Elliott deserves major props for keeping things in check as Morton tends to ramble off topic a couple of times. When you buy this from ellbowproductions.weebly.com you will get a three disc set that includes deleted interviews and matches. This will surely bring up the debate does the duo deserve induction into the WWE Hall of Fame.