Midnight Express & Jim Cornette-in book form!

This past Christmas I received the Midnight Express and Jim Cornette 25^th Anniversary Scrapbook written by Jim Cornette & Tim Ash. I have wanted this book for a long time after watching Cornette’s Youshoot where the book was brought up a lot and I wanted to read it. Over the past 2 months I’ve picked it up from time to time (not the biggest reader if I’m honest) but recently I went to London and the 1 plus hour train ride to and from really helped me finish it off. So I thought I’d give a little review of the book, promise I won’t spoil anything major.

Now in terms of the Scrapbook part of the title of this book there are a lot of pictures included here, there are odd ones put in to help tell a story and there are a few pages of just pictures including some hate mail which has one that is just a drawing of a hand giving a middle finger. So onto the main book it starts with an introduction/dedication to Ray Traylor who really got his first break in wrestling being the bodyguard of Jim Cornette, Ray would go on to become the Big Bossman in WWE.

The book starts of by looking at all 4 men’s (Cornette, Dennis Cordrey, Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane) careers before they would team up. During this chapter you really see how lucky Jim Cornette was in wrestling as he got his manager role with the team really early on in his career. You also see how often all 3 wrestlers would interact before teaming up. Now before the bulk of the book starts Jim explains what he believes “heat” is and this is a great chapter as heat back at that time was a great deal different to what it is today, wrestlers were literally attacked and almost killed due to the fans hatred of them.

So the bulk of the book starts at page 32 it covers the genesis of the group in Mid-South wrestling and the idea coming from Bill Watts. Over Jim’s career he kept detailed notes about every night they worked this included the match, the finish, how much money was drawn in and sometimes how many people attended. The book basically shows these notes off, which might sound boring but throughout this stories that occurred at the time are thrown in. There is also a chapter that explains the notes/results in details so you don’t get confused, to be honest that was a help as the odd DCOR, standing for Double Count Out of Ring, was there and I forgot what it stood for at some points.

The team consisting of Dennis, Bobby & Jim as a manager started off in Mid-South where they would win the tag team titles and the legendary feud between them and the Rock ‘n Roll Express would start off. In December 1984 the team wanted to head to Jim Crockett’s Mid-Atlantic NWA but ended up going to Fritz Von Erich’s WCCW which they hated a great deal and they only lasted a few months there before going to Crockett’s company. The majority of their career would take place there so a lot of the book is this.

A story about the team meeting up with Vince McMahon about going to WWF and the craziness that came out of it is a highlight. An interesting photo that is included for the Starrcade 1986 chapter is a pay check showing that they got paid $10,045 for their Scaffold match against the Road Warriors. Another pay check shows the talent would give up $25 to a wrestler who was injured (this happened for Barry Darsow and Magnum TA). Now one of the things I learnt in this book was why and how Condrey left the team and how Lane got in. I found out that Lane wasn’t the original choice, Jim wanted Tom Prichard but Dusty Rhodes chose Stan Lane a better choice in my view.

A story highlighting how a match against 2 jobbers who got over (the Mulkey Brothers) ended up being a super-heated affair in the jobbers hometown. After November 1987 a lot more stories are told in the book as this was when the team started to hate the company they worked for, they started having very few opponents which was surprising considering the company had 2 tag titles at the time and a packed tag division. In November 1988 the company was brought out and it began changing into WCW, Jim Herd would be introduced as the new boss and hell would commence. It’s amazing to see what they had to go through, like starting of a feud with the Original Midnight Express and having it killed off by Herd, having to work with the infamous Dynamic Dudes and the random duo of Z-Man & Brian Pillman. You really get the idea that working with the company was nothing but frustration and this ultimately ended up with Stan Lane & Jim Cornette walking out on the company, Bobby would stay and ended up working with WCW for years after.

That closed of the career retrospective of the book the next chapter looks at what each person did after the Express ended and then looks at the reunions the team would do at reunion shows (shock horror) including the first time that all 4 men would team together, in Ring of Honor. Near the end of the book Jim Cornette shares a few stories this includes some legal battles the team faced, a look at how Jim Crockett tried to explain how the talent was paid on shows and the theory being put to use, a look at the ring introduction that Cornette would do, a look at some of the comedy spots the team loved to use, some of Cornette’s favourite one-liners, ribs the guys played on each other and 2 Christmas poems Cornette wrote.

That closed out the book. Honestly this is a book you can power through if you wanted to but it’s worth the read. Granted running through the endless results can be annoying at times, you often get lost at times but it’s broken up very well with some great stories. The book is only £35, Jim Cornette will sign it as well for free. I really loved this book, the Express have a career that is worth talking about and it really highlights how underrated they all were at the time, I find that the Express is often overlooked when you look back at that time period but they were not only amazing workers but a great heel attraction that could get a real intense heat level to their matches. Again I would highly recommend this book to any wrestling fan out there.

I would like to add that this review was hard to do as I really didn’t want to ruin any of the book if you decide to go read it so I tried not to go into that much detail. The book is quite big and I only scratched the surface of what was inside it.

A Chamber that Eliminates people.

We have just had the Royal Rumble and we are months away from Wrestlemania but the often overlooked Elimination Chamber takes place inbetween these 2 shows. I say overlooked because it becomes just another show you have to do and often very little will change on this show. I thought that I would have a look at the Elimination Chamber match and give a little history of it as well as some interesting facts. So before the history here are some facts on the Chamber. The chamber was made in 2002 at the cost of $500,00 and the story is that the developmental territory HWA was closed down that same year, WWE would pay that company $500,000 a year because of the relationship so in theory they destroyed a developmental company to get the chamber. The match starts with 2 men in the ring and the other 4 locked in pods with them being added to the match randomly every 5 minutes, this has changed from year to year.
A total of 44 wrestlers have competed in the chamber over 15 matches with 9 men winning. Triple H has the most wins with 4, John Cena has 3 and Edge has 2 besides that no one has won the chamber more than once. Chris Jericho has both the most appearences (with 7) and the most eliminations (with 10), Triple H & CM Punk both have 7 eliminations and Taker has 6. Big Show, Kane and Randy Orton all have 4 appearences and no wins, they also have very few eliminations between them. R-Truth probably has the worst luck when it comes to the chamber having appeared 3 times and having a total time of 4:45. Kevin Nash has the shortest time of 2:05 for one match while Jericho has the longest total time of 138:04. Triple H has the longest time in one match with 39:20 while Edge, Rey Mysterio & John Morrison all lasted over 30 minutes in one match. Goldberg, Carlito and Undertaker all have the most eliminations in one match with 3. The longest chamber match lasted 39:20 and the shortest match lasted 19:12. There is currently 2 undefeated men when it comes to the match, Bobby Lashley who won his one off appearence in 2006 and Daniel Bryan who won one of the chambers last year.
The chamber was introduced at Survivor Series 2002 as a Raw exclusive match, less than a year later the 2nd match would take place at Summerslam 2003. The match would then be "assigned" to New Year's Revolution for 2 years, the first year would be crown a new World champion after the title was vacated and it saw Triple H win 2 chambers in a row something that would only happen three times, two of those times by Triple H. The second chamber at New Year's Revolution was the first to see the WWE title be defended in the chamber and also had the first cash in moment prior when Edge won the title from John Cena.
The first non-Raw chamber would take place at December to Dismember 2006 which saw Bobby Lashley win the title in probably the worst chamber in history. Interesting note what was originally planned and what happened were 2 very different things, orginally CM Punk was meant to start the match with Big Show (then ECW champ) and Punk would make him tap out before anyone else would enter, Punk would go on and win the match. WWE wanted Lashley as the guy so he won, the fans disagreed and literally turned their backs on the show. This was also the only time that the chamber would have a twist as this was an "Extreme Chamber" with the 4 men in the pods having weapons they could use.

The chamber wouldn't return until No Way Out 2008 and would begin the 2 chambers in one night which the company would do from then. The 2008 show would decide who would challenge for the World titles at Wrestlemania, with Undertaker and Triple H winning. At No Way Out 2009 aka the night of Edge, both chambers would be for the titles. The show started with Edge defending the WWE title and losing it to Triple H, when the main event came about Edge would attack Kofi Kingston who was meant to be in the match and took his spot, Edge would end up winning the match and the title. Edge is the only one who has wrestled in both chambers in one night.

In 2010 the PPV was offically renamed Elimination Chamber and again saw both titles defended in the chamber. John Cena and Chris Jericho would win the matches that night. But John Cena would be the victim of another "cash in" moment when Batista was given a title match by Vince McMahon out of no where. In 2011 one match would decide the World title while the second would name the number 1 contender for the WWE title. Edge and Rey Mysterio would put on a match with 4 guys interfering with Edge retaining the World title in one of his last matches before retiring, while John Cena won the Raw chamber and it would be the third time someone would win back to back chambers. Last year saw both titles being defended in the chamber and both champions retaining with CM Punk and Daniel Bryan winning.
That's a brief history of the chamber. Looking forward to the upcoming show it seems that we will only be getting one chamber this year which will be to crown the number 1 contender to the World heavyweight title. Personally I'm very happy they've gone back to one chamber as having 2 in one night is a bit overkill and I've never been a fan of putting the titles in the chamber so close to Mania and I prefer that the chamber be used to name the contender for the title that the Rumble winner isn't going for. Also looking at the PPV the Rock/Punk rematch and the likely Show/Del Rio match have more importance & story behind them. We'll also likely get the Shield vs. Cena/Ryback/Sheamus in a 6 man tag.
The chamber much like the Hell in a Cell has become a trival note in WWE, it's a match that takes place in February and that's about it. Like the Cell they have a Chamber for a match instead of a match for the chamber. If you're interested in seeing the history of the chamber you can get Iron Will which has all the matches from 2002 to 2010.