[1990-10-27-NWA-Halloween Havoc] Midnight Express vs Ricky Morton & Tommy Rich

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

I love this match! It's not quite a great match. But I love this match. Sadly, it's the end of the road for the Midnight Express. But what a way to go. Ricky Morton and Bobby Eaton seemed to know that and went completely balls out for 15 minutes. Eaton took some big bumps on the floor, did a Rocket Launcher from the top rope to the ramp, ate a headscissors on the floor, and they worked some pretty fast-paced sequences. The crowd was really into the MX, which shows how much of a loss this team as a unit was to the promotion. There's an unspoken finality to all of this. Tommy Rich is barely involved and I think it works best that way. This was about the Midnight Express vs Rock & Roll Express feud coming to an end on the national stage, and he was just there as a warm body since Robert Gibson was injured. I really want to hear Childs' thoughts on this when he gets to it, because Bobby Eaton and Ricky Morton leave it all in the ring.

[Dylan Waco]

One of my favorite matches of all time as in top twenty or so. Tremendously great performance from Morton and Eaton. Possibly the best two man show I've ever seen in a tag match

[El-P]

Great stuff from Morton and Eaton indeed, their last together on a major stage.

[PeteF3]

Gibson is still being acknowledged on the pre-match interview, having been allegedly put out of action by the Freebirds. Between Rich & Morton here and seemingly everyone decked out in the stuff on USWA television, leather jackets were apparently the ultimate "in" thing in October of 1990. This show is notable in my mind for having probably the ugliest ring ever put together for a major promotion.

 

Morton works the whole first portion of the match, taking on both Midnights before an awkward turnaround moment on the floor where everyone looks uncharacteristically lost. Paul E. covers by noting Rich and Morton's lack of experience as a team. Eaton continues to be an absolute terror, doing a Rocket Launcher onto the ramp and busting out a DIAMOND CUTTER of all things. Then he launches himself into the ringpost and takes a huracanrana on the floor. Cornette absolutely murders Rich with a racket shot, but the Southern Boys dressed as nerdier versions of Cornette allow Rich to recover the racket and clobber Lane with it for the pin. Have to say that for all the talk about this being the "final chapter" in the feud, however ill-fated it may have been by the Gibson injury, you'd think they could at least allow Morton to get the winning fall.

 

Not quite as good as the other two big-show matches between the MX and R'nRs, but a worthy final chapter for the Midnights in general, as sad as it will be to bid them farewell. Part of me is starting to wish that, however watered down they may have ended up, the WWF had gone after them instead of the Nasty Boys.

[soup23]

May not be a great match per say, but certainly a tremendously fun one and one of my favorite matches of the year. I don't want to undersell Lane in this because while his strikes were not as crisp as they can be he was doing a lot of hotdogging throughout the match that was tremendously entertaining. Beautiful curtain call for the MX. I have also always loved the setting of Havoc 90 besides that terrible blood red mat color.

[Childs]

Yeah, Rich really didn't do much of anything. This was basically Morton vs. MX and Cornette, with everyone playing their classic roles. The range of offense Eaton unleashed was pretty amazing, though he did appear to come up pretty short on a Savage-style axehandle to the floor. The rocket launcher to the ramp looked pretty sick. Morton was Morton. What can you say? He and Eaton were the best ever at their respective tag-team roles. It's a rivalry that deserves to be remembered with Flair-Steamboat, Misawa-Kawada, etc.

[Kevin Ridge]

New look for Ricky Morton. Dressing up for Halloween. Rich filling in for Gibson who is injured. Midnights have their fans in attendance. Eaton goes to the top rope but seems to not know for sure what move to do Morton on the outside. Camera angle showed move missing completely but Morton sells like he got hit. Nice, rocket launcher on to Morton who was on the ramp. Eaton does a Diamond Cutter type move. Eaton hits the Alabama Jam but instead of pinning wants the ref to do the TKO count. That is cocky. Morton finally makes the tag to Rich. Not much of a crowd response though. Southern Boys show up dressed as Cornette. Rich ends up using Cornette’s racket to pin Lane. Midnights haven’t had the best winning record of late.

[ajtroma]

Who knew that this one would be the Last Hurrah for Bobby & Stan?

 

That Southern Boys cameo was ridiculous.

[Crazymax Jack]

Just read a detailed review of the Havoc 90 show over here http://crazymax.org/newsite/reviews/audit-havoc-1990/ a week back.

 

Went back and watched the match, though I've always remembered it fondly. Really good stuff throughout. Very inventive and not repetitive of earlier years stuff. Lots of good spots kept the match hot for the entire duration of nearly 20 minutes. Rich did fine filling in for Gibson's spot, but Eaton single handedly stole the show for me in this match. Great stuff indeed. Hot, hot show opener.

[DMJ]

Just saw this entire PPV for the first time via the Network and really enjoyed this opener.

 

As others have said, it's basically the Morton/Eaton show, which ain't a bad thing and the crowd obviously eats it up.

 

What struck me about the show overall was that the first four matches are tag bouts and three of them (this one, Steiners/Nasty Boys, and Doom/Flair & Double A) are really entertaining and different enough to keep the audience engaged (both the live crowd and I'd expect modern viewers).

[BruiserBrody]

Just saw this entire PPV for the first time via the Network and really enjoyed this opener.

 

As others have said, it's basically the Morton/Eaton show, which ain't a bad thing and the crowd obviously eats it up.

 

What struck me about the show overall was that the first four matches are tag bouts and three of them (this one, Steiners/Nasty Boys, and Doom/Flair & Double A) are really entertaining and different enough to keep the audience engaged (both the live crowd and I'd expect modern viewers).

The Network has the edited version up

 

It looked like Rich and Morton were dressed as greasers with the white shirts and leather jackets.

 

Match took me by surprise as I wasn't expecting it to be THAT good.

 

Then it goes to the Freebirds/Youngnbloods... :wacko: :wacko:

[garretta]

Let's face it; this was basically a handicap match until the very end, and it was perhaps the best handicap match I've ever seen. The MX didn't know they were finished yet, but the time wasn't far away, so they really turned up the intensity, and Ricky was right there to meet them. So many great moves by Stan and Bobby here: Bobby's slingshot backbreaker, Bobby's combination DDT and Diamond Cutter, and of course the rocket launcher on the ramp. Ricky took one last beating like the Hall of Famer he is, complete with extra-vicious racquet shots from Corny.

 

Once Rich tagged in and the Southern Boys got involved, though, it all went to hell. Why book such a silly run-in? If it had been the racquets carried by Smothers and/or Armstrong that caused Rich to get the fall, then it would have been tolerable. As it was, Tommy pinned Lane after hitting him with Corny's racquet, which he could have done without Tracy and Steve's help. So the finish didn't really advance the Southern Boys/MX program, it cheapened Ricky's last match with the MX, and it didn't really do much for Morton and Rich as a team, since the win was portrayed as a complete fluke. That's a hell of a trifecta.

 

I loved Heyman on commentary here. Other than taunting Ricky from time to time about Robert not being there for him, he played it totally straight, giving the MX props for their excellent work and correctly pointing out Morton and Rich's inexperience as a team on several occasions. He even grudgingly praises his sworn enemy Corny. JR didn't react much one way or the other, preferring to call the match essentially by himself. There had to be at least some awkwardness between the two; early in the bout, when Paul demanded that JR praise Eaton for a clean break, we got nothing but stony silence. Usually we get at least a reply of some sort. You can tell me all you want to about JR playing babyface to Heyman's heel, but Paul didn't really play the heel here, so I'm not buying it. It'll be interesting to hear the dynamic between them in the other two Havoc matches we have here.

 

This was a great opener. Hopefully the rest of the card lives up to it.

[drew wardlaw]

Very sentimental match for me. I love this one so much. The opening sequence between Ricky and Bobby with the crisscross rope running is really well done, Bobby hits all the coolest offense you can imagine, the crowd goes wild for the rocket launcher onto the ramp. When I watched this when I was little I didn't know it was the end for the MX or anything like that, but watching it now it really does feel like a kind of curtain call.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Midnight Express vs Ricky Morton & Tommy Rich - NWA Halloween Havoc 90

 

Tommy Rich makes Robert Gibson look like Ric Flair with how little he does in this as Morton wrestles 99% of the match. I loved Stan Lane high fiving everyone even trying to get Nick Patrick in on the action. Face shine was bit more subdued then usual. This has to go down as one of the best heat segments in tag team wrestling history. MX open up a can on Morton who sells so well. The transition which was a back drop into a slam. Stan Lane's dancing was so good! Eaton's rocket launcher. Plenty of Corny's racket shots. Lane doing a JYD headbutt. Alabama Jam and then wanting the ten count instead of a standard pin. MX was just so friggin' good here. Rich was a fine hot tag and I totally bit on Rich eating the pin off a racket shot, but then Southern Boys distract in ridiculous Cornette-style garb. Rich ends up whacking Lane with the racket for the win and there goes the Midnights. Fun match. Almost all heat segment, but whatta heat segment! ***1/2

[dawho5]

MX and Ricky Morton one last time! And they must have known it, because they really left it all out there. Please say we have all kinds of Bobby Eaton footage from somewhere on the 91 and 92 set?