Dennis Condrey passed away

This past weekend, founding member of the legendary Midnight Express, Dennis Condrey passed away at the age of 74. Condrey, who had battled throat cancer on two occasions in recent years, was honored in the ring by FTR during an appearance on AEW television in 2023. On his podcast, Jim Cornette revealed that Condrey suffered a fall at home, breaking his neck and partially paralyzed before he was taken to the hospital where he passed away a few hours later.

Ironically, much of Condrey's pro wrestling career, including his infamous exit from The Midnight Express in their heyday of Jim Crockett Promotions was kept strictly professional and not much was known about his personal life. It wasn't until more recent years, including the AEW appearance and occasional conventions that the former member of the legendary team was in the public eye.

One thing is for sure, Dennis Condrey, very similar to his late partner, Bobby Eaton, was a textbook definition of the term "in-ring worker" in the annals of the industry. Breaking into the business in the Memphis territory in the 1970s, Condrey was a classic heel, everything he did was crisp and sharp to get proper heat on the baby face of the evening, and just as solid as he was on offense, he could bump around like a polished pro to make that baby face shine on the comeback. He was very much a representation of the southern style that brought so much memorable tag team wrestling with it.

It sounds elementary, but with how solid his foundation was, that's why the baby faces were able to shine that bright in the bygone era of the territory days. Furthermore, the level of snug work that teams like The Midnight Express could bring to the table were one of the reasons that tag team wrestling was a pillar of a territory that could draw money at the time because it generated heat and thus had a level of importance to the fan base.

In many ways, Condrey was a true tag team specialist throughout his career to a degree that few others were. He had a notable duo with Phil Hickerson during the early Memphis days before he formed the original Midnight Express with Randy Rose by 1980. During the famous talent trade of 1983 when promoter, Jerry Jarrett and the hard-nosed "Cowboy" Bill Watts agreed to send talent to each of their territories, the rookie manager from the prior year, Jim Cornette was sent to Mid-South. It was there that the legendary Louisville slugger was paired with youngster Bobby Eaton and established veteran, Condrey to form the most well-known combination of the team. The deal to send Eaton, Cornette and Condrey to the same territory had a major domino effect in the years that followed.

It didn't take long for Cornette's verbal sparring, Beautiful Bobby's agility, and Condrey's rugged, but polished style to produce results for Watts' box office. In the nearly two years that the team was in the promotion, they worked a memorable feud with a young Magnum TA and a soon to be heel, Mr. Wrestling II before they collided in a longstanding rivalry with the Rock N' Roll Express, also an export from Memphis, in a series of matches that helped define both teams' career in the sport. Furthermore, when the grizzled Watts came out of retirement for "The Last Stampede" series, it was Condrey and Eaton that were chosen as the villains for Watts and the company's top star, Junkyard Dog. When the bout was taken to the Super Dome in New Orleans, it drew an estimated 25,000 fans in mid-1984.

When they wrapped up their run in Mid-South, they took a six-month detour to World Class in Texas at the request of Watts to help his friend, the equally hard-nosed, Friz Von Erich as the Dallas territory was still reeling from David's death in February of that year. Considering that the Free Bird feud was still at the top of the card and still drawing houses at that point, there wasn't much of a place for The Midnight Express, other than a mid card feud with The Fantastics, the combination of Bobby Fullton and Tommy Rogers, a spin off of the Fabulous Ones.

As unnecessary as the relatively quick trip to Dallas was, the timing still worked out for them by the time they landed in Jim Crockett Promotions in mid-1985. Vince McMahon's national expansion was in full swing with the success of the first Wrestlemania a few months earlier, and Crockett was quickly becoming the only major competitor to the WWF, as the smaller territories simply couldn't keep pace with Vince's expansion into their markets through cable television.

A lot can be said about what JCP did right or wrong during these key years of the mid-80s, but there's no doubt that the NWA was a national platform at that point rather than a regional system so the jump to the Carolina-based group gave The Midnight Express the biggest exposure and biggest money possible in the business at the time. You can argue that maybe this was one of the reasons that Crockett ultimately couldn't truly compete with the WWF, but regardless of the national platform, the NWA still sold its audiences the substance of the pro wrestling business rather than McMahon's offering of the sizzle of sports entertainment. Crockett still sold bell-to-bell action, which probably could've survived, but that's a different discussion for a different time. The point being, the wrestling philosophy of the NWA suited The Midnight Express perfectly, and they had the few years of previous experience to present the team in the best fashion possible on the biggest stage possible at the time.

As much as Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes were the anchors of the main event scene of that era of the NWA, the same could be said for Condrey and Easton in the tag team division, which was still spotlighted during that time frame. The Rock N' Roll feud was revisited, as it was simply a winning formula, and became one of the staples of the JCP presentation. When closed circuit television started to become a major revenue stream as an early version of pay-per-view, Starrcade 1986 was dubbed, "The Night of The Sky Walkers" to promote The Midnight Express vs. The Road Warriors in a scaffold match. This was also when Jim Cornette took a plunge from the scaffold, suffering a serious knee injury in the process, before he was carried backstage by Big Bubba, the future Big Bossman in the WWF.

After almost two years in Crockett Promotions and four years as arguably the best tag team in the entire business, Dennis Condrey infamously left the company without notice or telling anyone where he was. The story still isn't completely public, but it's said that he was dealing with family problems after almost 15 years of traveling for his career prior to his abrupt exit. Condrey resurfaced in 1987 alongside his original partner, Randy Rose in the declining days of the AWA, which opened the door for a brief, but memorable Midnight Express feud toward the end of 1988 when rookie manager, Paul E. Dangerously brought the original duo to challenge Eaton and Condrey's replacement, Stan Lane, in the NWA, which was just bought by Ted Turner to keep the promotion on his network.

The feud only went on for few months until the teams were scheduled for a match on pay-per-view in February of 1989 when Condrey left without explanation again. He quietly wrapped up his career on the independent circuit the following year without much fanfare before he took a job outside of pro wrestling.

Considering that this was before even VHS tapes were widely distributed, much of Condrey's work was difficult to find until more recent years. He was one of the true, "if you know, you know" cases in pro wrestling. It wasn't until he was in his mid-50s that an unexpected Midnight Express reunion made its way around the independent circuit, including in Ring Of Honor, 15 years after he originally retired that Condrey saw how remembered he was by the fans. By that time, more footage was available to the public so even fans of a newer generation had seen at least some of his NWA work.

I actually had the chance to meet Bobby Eaton and Dennis Condrey when they worked a bout against the late Tracy Smothers and Chris Hamrick at an International Wrestling Cartel event in 2004. I was just 15 at the time, but I knew of their legendary reputation and looked forward to meeting them. They were both very polite, and I was surprised that when I asked how much it was to sign the magazine that I had, Bobby Eaton said in his heavy accent, "for your book? that's nothin' for that." It was really great to get the chance to see the legendary team that I knew had such a stellar reputation wrestle live, considering that their heyday was before my time.

I'm really glad that Dennis Condrey got the chance to see how much fans appreciated his work in more recent years. As much as technology is going to ruin society, the WWE Network published a lot of his Mid-South and NWA footage when he worked alongside Cornette and Eaton. Still, it's wild to think that he had another decade of wrestling behind him before those runs that either weren't filmed or didn't survive since Memphis taped over shows each week.

There's no doubt that the wrestling world lost an underrated legend and one of the greatest tag team wrestlers of all time. My sincere condolences to Dennis Condrey's friends and family at this difficult time.