Profile #777: The Midnight Express

[Note: I'm intentionally ignoring the myriad previous and future incarnations of this team, as clearly this was the finest version ever to lace up a set of boots and pull on the, uh, salmon (pink?) trunks.]

"Beautiful" Bobby Eaton and "Sweet" Stan lane. Otherwise known as The Midnight Express. (Not to be confused with any other "Express" tag-team names that saturated the wrestling scene in the mid-'80s.) Perhaps the finest technical tag-team ever assembled. No two combatants were able to invent and execute as many devastating maneuvers from such a complex variety of angles in the history of the sport. On any given night, they might employ from their vast repertoire any of the following moves: the Double Goosel, the Flapjack, or--if they were feeling particularly spunky--the Veg-o-Matic. Led to the ring (and in most interviews) by the inimitable, and loquacious, Jim Cornette [See Profile #911], the Midnights were far ahead of their time in more than one way.

If you peruse the contemporary professional wrestling landscape, you'll note that many (if not all) of the tag-teams out there are composed of two individual wrestlers, slapped together in a hackneyed way, and they don't even bother to come up with a team name, nevermind wrestle as a unit for more than 6 months at a clip. The Midnights formed and prospered during the halcyon days of tag-team wrestling. And they were, undoubtably, at their professional zenith in the mid- to late-1980s.

And....they were flat-out fucking cool. From their pink tights to their innovative seamless transitions in the ring, all the way down to one of the more awesome (and criminally underrated) intro songs in wrestling. Dig it:

Bad-fucking-ass, right? Now, I was only like 12 years old when I first heard this, but I can assure you I knew, almost instinctively, that I was going to get stoned to it many, many times into my adulthood.

Cornette, their fearless (read: fearful) leader always had some gems to bust out, mostly because Eaton was a deaf mute and Lane was coked to the gills. [As an aside: Sweet Stan always seemed like he should've been working at a marina somewhere in a small town in Florida. Probably ripping off tourists by overcharging them for fishing expeditions on his crappy boat, and hitting on the soccer moms aboard. Also, my Dad once mentioned that my Mom would "drop her pants right now for Stan (if he were in the room)." Creepy, unsolicited, and yet still buried in my not-so-subconscious. Thanks, Dad.]

Anyway, it was always good to hear Cornette come up with nicknames. Who else would call a mulleted inbred like Bobby Eaton--from Huntsville, Alabama---the "Sultan of Swing"? Not to be outdone by deeming Stan Lane, "The Gangster of Love." Sheer, unfettered genius.

Perhaps they were the last of the great tag-teams, The Midnight Express never really ventured outside of the Jim Crockett Promotions Mid-Atlantic territory. And really, they didn't have to. They were the best of the best and everyone already knew it.

Where are they now? Both Eaton and Lane, though officially retired, continue to make guest/special ringside appearances at various regional cards and for special occasions. I'm sure Eaton still rocks the mullet unironically, and I'm sure "Sweet" Stan is probably banging a crispy-haired personal trainer chick somewhere in the bowels of the Floridian peninsula.

Profile #2: "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes

The American Dream. The son of a plumber. The white man's afro. The purple belly splotch. The urban-Southern patois. The shuck. The jive. The lisp. The bionic elbow.

Needless to say, Dusty Rhodes was the chief inspiration for the birth of this blog. When I was a kid, I found an old kneepad, slipped it onto my elbow, and went around pretending to drop the "bionic elbow" on random kids in the neighborhood. I wanted to be Dusty. It didn't matter that he had the physique of a flesh-colored Grimace. It didn't matter that he couldn't pronounce the letter "s." Dusty was my idol.

It's pathetic, but I remember sitting in my basement with my Dad. Huge, HUGE Saturday night. It was Dusty versus his hated rival, Tully Blanchard [see Profile #321] , of the dreaded Four Horsemen. It was a match for the television title, but with a twist: each participant was to put up $50,000 worth of his own money, with the winner collecting the championship belt and the bounty. Of course, Dusty rolls up with his $50,000 in cash in a brown paper sack. He declared it "The people'th money, daddy!" Tully strides to the ring with his manager and chief financial advisor of Tully Blanchard Enterprises, Inc., J.J. Dillon [see Profile #881]. Dillon is carrying a steel briefcase filled with their money. My Dad had ordered some Jerry's Subs (which he would later boycott for many decades) and french fries and soda. We were huddled together in the basement, father and son, rooting against each other's respected combatants. I couldn't understand how he'd root for Tully back then. Still really don't understand it entirely to this day.

The particulars of the battle aren't important, only that Tully and J.J. cheated to defeat Rhodes. My Dad gloated. I cried, and stormed out of the basement. Rooting for Dusty Rhodes was like that; predicated almost entirely on pathos, irrespective of victory or defeat. You rooted for him because he had guts and he never backed down.

Of course, he played the blue-collar face perfectly, and even managed to infuse some "street" vernacular into each promo. On the stick, he's probably in my top five, all-time. Nobody could talk shit like Big Dust in an interview. He'd come out in terrifyingly tight blue jeans, a flannel, maybe a faux-silk Skoal jacket, and a trucker hat (no irony), and just lay it down. He'd bust out lines like "I'll rip yo' neck off and dance on ya tonsils!" And I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Despite being overweight, Dusty was a pretty good worker and had a natural instinct on how to gauge and play to the crowd. He took the traditional "face in peril" role to the extreme, and he bled buckets nearly every night for added effect. It'd be pointless to attempt a linear progression of his career, as it's far too storied and comprehensive to summarize here, but let's just say that he fought and beat everyone and anyone in the wrestling industry at one point or another. He held every major title there is to hold, and he fought in every major organization there was to fight in. I won't explore his booking capacity here; I'm strictly talking about Dusty, the wrestler.

Perhaps the thing Dusty was most famous for, unfortunately, was taking a beating. God, could he take a beating. It was his signature. And back in the day, before the curtain was pulled back on professional wrestling and we had the cavalcade of inane vignettes and back-stage videos, Dusty engineered what was at that time a revolutionary concept: getting jumped not just outside the ring, but outside the arena. In "real" life. Unheard of. And thus a moment was born that, I still contend, is the greatest single moment in wrestling history to-date. Yes: Dusty Rhodes getting jumped in a parking lot in Charlotte, NC, by the Four Horsemen. Behold:

Please note that right before Dusty gets smashed with the Louisville Slugger, he says "Make it good!" Ya know why? 'Cause Big Dust goes hard, that's why. Just look at his forehead---a crossroads of scars and slashes that Jim Cornette observed "resemble a Sudanese roadmap."

Then, of course, the second-best moment was when Dusty lost a loser-leaves-town match. Suddenly and mysteriously, a new masked wrestler named The Midnight Rider, entered the scene. Nothing like a 300+ lbs. Dusty Rhodes, purple belly splotch and all, squeezed under a black mask, seeking vengeance on his enemies.

As a kid, I always knew Dusty would take a beating and keep on comin'. It was in his DNA to seek justice against all odds. Oddly inspirational. That was the essence of The American Dream.

Where is he now? Retired, divorced, and inducted into the Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2007. I imagine he's eating a jelly doughnut somewhere and enjoying the good life. As he should. All hail The Dream.