[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.
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