Match 1 – The Midnight Express vs. The Rock & Roll Express (5.23.84) – http://dai.ly/k3MUr2sH1tXEqjnQfXS
No DQ Mid-South Tag Team Championship Match! And $50,000 too!
Well, what better match to kick start this MX 5 matches with, than with a match against their legendary rivals the RnR Express! MX at this time is the Bobby Eaton and Dennis Condrey version btw, aka the second incarnation of the MX team, but the first to be managed by Jim Cornette.
Jim has his racket taken off him! Why? This is No DQ!
RnR have the match in hand in the start, despite the blind tag from Eaton to Condrey. Even another tag to bring back Eaton in isn’t enough to stop the momentum the tag champs have built up!
Eaton thrown over the top rope!!! Cornette is yelling for a DQ, but there are none!
A missed dropkick from Morton finally turns the tide, with Condrey wasting no time taking advantage and then making a quick tag to get the fresh man in. I probably haven’t seen a tag team match since WM 33, so its nice to see one after all this time and it be sooo good. So simple, but so good. Just a classic STF that guys either don’t know how to do or don’t want to do it in fear of not being able to do flippy flippy shit every 30 seconds in order to get a reaction.
Cornette pulls down the ropes and Gibson falls to the floor. Condrey attempts to throw him into the ring post but gets reversed and goes head first into the steel!
Chaos in the ring, as the referee gets accidentally taken out, and Cornette jumps in with a rag soaked in ether to take out Gibson! We have NEW Mid South Tag Team Champions!!!
Great start to this 5 Matches With! Like I said, its just a classic tag match. Classic tag team formula. The finish is total old school heel work, and Cornette’s interview after the match explaining it is brilliant.
Match 2 – The Midnight Express vs. Road Warriors (4.18.86) – http://dai.ly/k2WaJKkc1BCNBNnQfHM
Another tag title match, this time its the NWA World Tag Team Championships! Can the MX survive a title defence against ANIMAL AND HAWK?
Will be interesting to see these two teams face off against each other in a normal match. Only ever seen their Scaffold match from later in the year. Was Condrey in that match though? Or had he been replaced by Stan Lane at that point? Honestly don’t remember, been so long since I saw the Scaffold match lol.
Animal shows off his power by taking a shoulder tackle from Condrey and not moving, then shows off this athleticism by leap frogging over him!
They reverse the sequence, with Animal steam rolling over Condrey with the should tackle, but instead of letting Condrey leap frog over him… he stops dead in his tracks and then hits a dropkick!!! MX are in trouble!
Hawk gets a turn, and just when the MX think they can double team him, he powers BOTH men down and sends them scurring to the outside to regroup!
PILEDRIVER!!! HAWK WITH THE NO SELL!!!
Poor MX, they are getting DESTROYED.
Finally, a shot to the back of Animal with the tennis racket gives the tag champs the opening they so desperately needed, and even gave Corny a work out as Hawk chases him around before the referee tells him to go back to his corner!
Condrey taunting Hawk is kinda hilarious, but done so he tries to get in the ring, allowing some illegal moves from Eaton .
Oh hey, Paul Ellering. Forgot he was even there. He wasn’t much of a manager on the outside, was he?
The hot tag finally comes and Hawk blasts everyone in his path. Animal gets back in to get him some of Condrey, and poor Cornette takes a beating too! Shot with the racket by Hawk to Eaton, and what’s this? We have NEW NWA World Tag Team Champions!!! Or do we?!?!?
No! The Road Warriors have been DQ’d for the racket shot, which the referee apparently saw even though he was knocked out on the floor? No idea lol, but the MX retain their titles in one hell of a fun match!!!
Match 3 – The Midnight Express vs. The Fantastics (3.27.88) – http://dai.ly/k7LkE3GnKBSlw2nQfTK
Alrighty, time for some SWEET STAN LANE MX!!! While the RnR Express where the team’s biggest rivals, The Fantastics were definitely #2 and every bit as good as the RnR Express too when it came to facing the MX!
I do believe this is also the first ever Clash of the Champions too! It went head to head with… WM 4, I think? Poor WM 4. It was a god awful event, and JCP/NWA shat all over it with a free show that outclasses it in every way imaginable as far as wrestling is concerned. Guessing Vince made more money though…
The Fantastics waste no time here, going right after Stan and Bobby, making this match a crazy brawl! Chairs! Tables! Ringposts! This is a damn war!
Didn’t think this was No DQ or anything so… uhhh… fuck knows what the referee is doing lol.
Holy shit, that was awesome! Fuck describing it, here it is for all to see!!!
KARATE KICK~! Man, that reminds me of an awesome KARATE EXCHANGE in the MX/Southern Boys match a few years later. Sadly I won’t be covering it here because I have seen it a good few times.
Rodgers thrown into the ropes, and Cornette holds up a table!
MX show off their fantastic tag team skills with double team moves, referee distractions, illegal moves and keeping Tommy Rodgers away from his corner. The crowd go fucking INSANE any time Tommy looks like he’s about to make a comeback. Ahhh, the good old days when wrestling crowds had something to truly cheer for.
BODY SLAM ON A TABLE~! Cornette looks like the happiest man on the planet right now!
BULLDOG ON THE TABLE~! KICKS TO THE HEAD~!
Tony and Ross do a great job of explaining why the referee keeps trying to get Bobby Fulton away from Rodgers while he’s on the floor. I like when commentary doesn’t suck balls .
TAG~! But the referee didn’t see it!
Cornette comes in with the racket and accidentally hits Bobby! The referee gets thrown over the ropes in the ensuing chaos, and then a splash off the top gets The Fantastics a 3 count from another referee, but the original referee reverses the decision and DQ’s The Fantastics! The MX retain their US Tag Team Championships, then begin to whip the living hell out of Fulton with a belt!!!
Holy crap is this good. Think I liked this more than the RnR match I watched! But that being said, I could watch another 2 matches against the RnR and Fantastics and prefer the RnR match lol. With so many out there, you just never know which will be better!
Match 4 – The Midnight Express vs. Samoan Swat Team (4.2.89) – http://dai.ly/k7qJDPzYG0ZgUUnQfOA
If I is not mistaken, the MX are actually BABYFACES during this time! Its the Cornette/Heyman feud, and anyone can be turned into a babyface when going up against Heyman!
SAMU AND FATU make up the Samoan Swat Team. They would be the Headshrinkers in the WWF, and of course FATU would go on to be RIKISHI.
The match isn’t your typical face vs heel stuff, but rather the MX being the experienced team, using their strengths as smaller, quicker guys and time spent as a team to their advantage, outsmarting and outwrestling their bigger, more violent opponents.
Oh man, the MX do a switch while the referee isn’t looking, rather pretending to tag and just hoping for the best. When the referee questions it, Cornette gets on the apron, asks the fans if they made a tag, and being babyface now, they of course cheer and the referee lets them carry on . Just really darn cool to see the MX working as babyfaces, while still doing some of their usual heel schtick but having the fans to support them anyway. Makes for a very interesting match.
Eventually the power of the SST comes into play, but sadly they don’t really have the offence to work the kind of control segment you’d want in an MX match.
Heyman trips Stan, so Cornette responds by decking which ever Samoan is in the ring with the racket .
Headbutts, slams and nerve grips make up 99% of the SST’s offence, but thankfully the MX do enough stuff either selling or fighting back to stop this from being even close to a boring match.
Cornette and Heyman get into it! While the referee is busy with them, Eaton gets hit with the phone and is pinned!!!
Not the best MX match you’ll see, but very different and that alone makes it worth the watch!
Match 5 – The Midnight Express vs. Southern Boys (11.4.90) – http://dai.ly/k3OuMjBC8suIYVnQfRd
I might have already seen their… GAB match, I think it was, but dammit I’m still gonna watch me a Southern Boys match! If I’m not mistaken, this might be the LAST MX tag match to be televised until 2004. The Cornette and Lane quit WCW shortly after, and I think they only had singles matches on TV before they left. Odds are they had a couple of tags at least on house shows though. Still, the last televised MX match until 2004. How INSANE is that?!!?
Cornette is sent to the back for this too! Dude probably didn’t give much of a fuck though. He sounded bored as fuck when he introduced the MX at the start of the match. He was DONE with WCW by this point lol.
KARATE MOVES~!
Is Missy Hyatt the one on commentary with JR? Good god is she AWFUL lol.
A standard tag match here, sadly. Most notable thing is Cornette showing up dressed in one of the Southern Boys’ coats to disguise himself and brings some award they won to the ring with him to use as a weapon to win the match. Sad to think how the MX ended in WCW. Fuck Jim Herd.