• Look Back In History
• Pmessages
• Quiz
• Stump The Staff
• Top Fifty
• Close

Why The Midnight Express Are Considered The Best Tag Team In Wrestling History

Posted: Jul 25th 2022 By: Sourav Mahanty - TheSportster.com

The Midnight Express is considered by many to as the best tag team in wrestling history and for good reason.

Tag Team wrestling is a bit of a lost art today. While there are still some big names like FTR, The Young Bucks, The Usos, The Briscoes, and more, none of them are real main event players. That was not always the case though.

Tag Team wrestling was arguably at its peak during the 1980s when it was a legitimate top-of-the-card attraction and sold-out arenas all over the country. In this era, there were some incredible tag teams like The Road Warriors, The Fabulous Freebirds, The Rock N' Rock Express, and many others. Yet, the team that might take the cake as the best of all time is The Midnight Express.

The Origins Of The Midnight Express

Interestingly, The Midnight Express did not start as a tag team but as a faction in 1981, consisting of Dennis Condrey, Randy Rose, and Norvell Austin in Southeast Championship Wrestling. The three did enjoy quite a bit of success but would go their separate ways in 1983.

Soon, Condrey would find himself in Mid-South Wrestling, where he was teamed up with Bobby Eaton, who he had actually feuded with in the past, in a new version of The Midnight Express, and the two were managed by Jim Cornette, who was a fresh-faced up-and-coming manager at that time and had been in the wrestling business only a year.

It is safe to say that it was a bit of an experiment more than anything else, but the three would gel together better than anybody could have ever dreamed, and the rest as they say is history.

The Midnight Express Vs The Rock N' Roll Express

Every great tag team needs the right dance partners and for The Midnight Express, these proved to be the team of Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson - The Rock N' Roll Express.

When it comes to being a pure babyface act, The Rock N' Roll Express is arguably the greatest of all time. Morton was the best seller in the business and could draw the sympathy of the crowd like no other. It was a common occurrence for fans to jump the guardrail and try to save him from the heels. On the other hand, Gibson had the best hot tag in the business and together, they were the perfect compliment to the hated heels that were The Midnight Express.

Of course, Cornette was dynamite on the mic and played a huge part in selling the feud as well, and it lasted for well over a decade, across multiple promotions.

The Midnight Express ended up having iconic feuds with other teams as well, but it is their rivalry with The Rock N' Roll Express, which will forever be remembered in wrestling history.

The Midnight Express Were Pioneers In The Ring

If you sit and watch a tag team match today, there is a good chance that you are seeing stuff that The Midnight Express either created or popularized. A great example of that is the flapjack, one of the most common moves in wrestling today, which was invented by Cornette.

In the ring, The Midnight Express were far ahead of their time and innovators. They were having matches against The Rock N' Roll Express, the likes of which had not been seen at that point in time and played a huge part in taking tag team wrestling to the next level.

Dennis Condrey Leaves And Is Replaced By Stan Lane

The Midnight Express would encounter a huge problem in 1987 when Condrey left the group all of a sudden. They were the best in the business at that point in time and instead of dissolving the team, Stan Lane was instead brought in as the replacement.

Lane would do a tremendous job of replacing Condrey and The Midnight Express would roll on. There are many fans who even prefer this version of the team.

Ultimately, it did not last very long though, as Cornette and Lane would end up leaving WCW in 1990 due to creative differences while Eaton stayed on.

What Is The Legacy Of The Midnight Express In Wrestling?

The Midnight Express will go down in wrestling history as one of the best tag teams in wrestling history if not the very best. Both iterations of the team, whether it be Eaton-Condrey or Eaton-Lane, were magnificent in the ring while Cornette is considered to be one of the greatest managers ever, largely thanks to his work with The Midnight Express.

The WWE did try to create The New Midnight Express, consisting of Bob Holly and Bart Gunn, in 1998. That proved to be a complete flop though and is not considered by most fans as part of their history.

The Midnight Express would continue to occasionally wrestle on the independent circuit even after their full-time in-ring careers were over and would have their last match in 2011, fittingly against The Roll N' Roll Express.