Jim Cornette Pays Tribute to Midnight Express’ Dennis Condrey After Passing

Dennis Condrey, a founding member of the legendary Midnight Express tag team, died Friday night at the age of 74, according to reports from Wrestleview and Prowrestling.net. The news was first shared by FTR’s Dax Harwood on Instagram, prompting an outpouring of tributes from across the professional wrestling world.

The circumstances surrounding Condrey’s death were detailed by Jim Cornette on his “Jim Cornette Experience” podcast. Cornette explained that Condrey’s wife, Teresa, a nurse, texted him at 4 p.m. On Friday as she was leaving work. When he didn’t respond – an unusual occurrence, according to Cornette – she found him unresponsive in their hallway. “He had fallen in their hallway, and not like downstairs or off of anything,” Cornette said. “Whether he had tripped is possible, or whether, as I think about it, it may have been more something that he had some kind of dizzy spell where he couldn’t catch himself on the way down.”

A neighbor was able to find Condrey and discovered he had broken his neck and sustained severe spinal cord damage in the fall. Despite being initially conscious, his condition rapidly deteriorated after arriving at the hospital, and he was placed on a respirator. “He was paralyzed at that point from the chest down, and with the injuries that he had sustained, they didn’t really have to make a decision. He was on a respirator, but that wasn’t going to last,” Cornette recounted.

Cornette lamented the ironic nature of Condrey’s death, noting his decades of performing physically demanding wrestling maneuvers. “People are going to say, what the f**k? Dennis Condrey took bumps for 50 years, he trips in the hall and breaks his neck,” Cornette said. He also pointed to Condrey’s prior health battles, including two bouts with cancer and multiple surgeries, including the removal of his voice box, as contributing factors.

The timing of Condrey’s death was particularly poignant, as Teresa Condrey was just nine days away from retirement, a milestone they had been eagerly anticipating. “He had been bugging Teresa about retiring, as she’s only 67 but that’s her full Social Security retirement age,” Cornette said. “He had been bugging her about retiring so they could spend some more time together, and they had some plans, and the last day she was going to be at work was the end of this month, nine days away.”

In recent years, Condrey had found renewed joy in reconnecting with fans and receiving recognition for his contributions to wrestling. “Not only getting a second chance at life almost 10 years ago now, but also just seeing the fan fests and the things, he spent a long time thinking that nobody remembers me,” Cornette said. “And to see the way the people still remember him.”

Condrey’s career began in 1973, with training from Joe Turner, and he initially gained prominence in Nick Gulas’s NWA Mid-America promotion, according to both Wrestleview and Wikipedia. He first formed the Midnight Express with Randy Rose in 1980 in Southeast Championship Wrestling, later adding Norvell Austin in 1981. The original iteration of the team disbanded in 1983.

Later that same year, Condrey teamed with Bobby Eaton and manager Jim Cornette to form a latest, highly successful version of the Midnight Express in Mid-South Wrestling. This team then moved to Jim Crockett Promotions in 1985, reigniting their feud with the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express, as Prowrestling.net reported. Condrey abruptly left Jim Crockett Promotions in 1987, replaced by Stan Lane.

Condrey briefly reunited with Randy Rose as “The Original Midnight Express” in the American Wrestling Association, managed by Paul E. Dangerously (Paul Heyman), before returning to Jim Crockett Promotions in 1988 in a storyline that pitted the two versions of the Midnight Express against each other.

Cornette emphasized Condrey’s leadership within the Midnight Express, particularly when the team transitioned to Mid-South Wrestling. “If he’d have said, ‘Jim, you pump the gas. Bobby, you go get all of our drinks. I’ll sit here,’ we would have done that, because he was the smartest one to the business,” Cornette said. He described Condrey as the team’s in-ring strategist, calling the matches and guiding their performance.

A GoFundMe campaign has been established by Dax Harwood to assist Teresa Condrey with funeral expenses. Contributions have been received from numerous wrestling personalities, including Tony Khan, the Young Bucks, Chris Jericho, and Cody Rhodes, according to Cornette.

Cornette concluded by asserting Condrey’s lasting influence on the wrestling industry. “The wrestlers you like learned how to do something from this guy,” Cornette said. “And I wish that more of them would learn how to do more of those things, because nobody works like Dennis Condrey in the business these days and hasn’t, hasn’t ever.”