Forever Beautiful – Remembering Bobby Eaton
On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 the wrestling world lost not only one of the best professional wrestlers ever, but one of the best human beings when ‘Beautiful’ Bobby Eaton passed away. Upon the news breaking, tributes immediately broke out from the wrestling world and beyond.
The Early Years
Bobby Eaton began his journey as a professional wrestler in the most innocuous of ways. As a big fan of Nick Gulas’ NWA Mid-America promotion, he began helping to assemble the ring at the young age of 13. Being a part of the ring crew allowed him to get a much closer view of the wrestling business at the time, but due to his age, he was only able to help out when they ran through his hometown of Huntsville, Alabama and the area. Having a foot in the door helped though, and Eaton would go on to train under the tutelage of Tojo Yamamoto. Yamamoto also was responsible for training future NWA Heavyweight Champion Tommy Rich and the legendary Jackie Fargo, while also helping along with countless others of several generations like both Jerry Jarrett and his son Jeff, and even Sid Vicious.
Eaton made his professional debut in NWA Mid-America at 17 in 1976, filling the role of enhancement talent to bigger stars in the mid-card. It wouldn’t take long before Eaton’s natural abilities would catch the eye of not only the fans but Gulas himself and he would slowly be elevated into a mid-card talent of his own, leaning towards the main event scene. As would become his calling card, Eaton shined in tag team wrestling with a variety of partners, including his trainer Yamamoto among others. A feud with the original Hollywood Blonds (Jerry Brown and future Freebird Buddy Roberts) would cement him as a must-see talent and in the storyline, Eaton was held responsible for driving the Blonds out of the territory.
He would go on to team with several more partners including Leaping Lanny Poffo before settling into a stable partnership with George Gulas (Nick’s son) and calling themselves The Jet Set. After holding the tag titles on three different occasions, Eaton would receive his first opportunity at a single’s push, engaging in a brutal and heated feud with Chris Colt. Following the feud’s conclusion, Eaton would team back up with Gulas as The Jet Set for one last run before moving on to Jerry Jarrett’s Continental Wrestling Association. He would once again be moved into a popular tag team, this time with Sweet Brown Sugar, calling themselves The New Wave. They would achieve great success along with manager Jimmy Hart before feuding with one another. Despite this success, the best was yet to come.
The Midnight Express
Mid-South Wrestling promoter Bill Watts was looking for fresh blood in his promotion which was beginning to struggle at the time. He brought in Eaton, teaming him with Dennis Condrey and placing them with manager Jim Cornette, officially forming The Midnight Express. The team would begin a feud with the Tag Team Champions, Magnum T.A. and Mr. Wrestling II. This would eventually act as the catalyst for that team’s breakup, with Mr. Wrestling II turning heel on Magnum T.A. and allowing the Midnight Express to win the Tag Team Championships. The team’s next opponent would become their most iconic rivals, as the Rock N’ Roll Express feuded regularly until The Midnight Express would depart Mid-South for a brief run-in Fritz Von Erich’s World Class Championship Wrestling. The team would not spend a great amount of time, with Jim Cornette himself later admitting to problems with booker Ken Mantell’s booking philosophy, but they would have a highlighted feud with The Fantastics during their run in Texas.
The best was yet to come, as The Midnight Express came to Jim Crockett Promotions to chase after their old rivals The Rock N’ Roll Express. The teams would trade wins and title reigns regularly and would go onto feud with The Road Warriors, culminating in the famous Skywalkers Scaffold match at Starrcade 1986. Shortly after at the beginning of 1987, Dennis Condrey would walk out of the promotion for reasons still not publicly disclosed to this day. Stan Lane would step up and take Condrey’s place, bumping The Midnight Express even further into the spotlight. As a former member of The Fantastic Ones with Steve Keirn, Lane was well-versed in tag team wrestling and gelled immediately with Bobby Eaton. While Lane had much more charisma, Eaton was still the glue that held The Midnight Express together, even as they would soon be joined by Big Bubba Rogers (the future Big Boss Man, Ray Traylor) as a heavy for both Cornette and the team itself.
The team would go onto feud with other notable teams like The Horsemen combination of Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard, before a potentially huge-angle presented itself in the form of Paul E. Dangerously bringing in the original Midnight Express of Dennis Condrey and Randy Rose, who had just come off a reign as the AWA Tag Team Champions. Unfortunately, the angle would be cut short by backstage politics and Condrey once again walking out.
The backstage politics would eventually drive Jim Cornette to walk out of the now Turner-owned WCW, taking Stan Lane with him. Eaton would remain due to having a family and needing to provide for them by fulfilling his contract. While the original plan was for him to depart WCW when his contract ran out to join his former partners in Cornette’s new Smoky Mountain Wrestling and the independents, he would end up becoming one of the longest-tenured WCW talents as he would remain with the company until 2000.
Singles Run, The Dangerous Alliance, The Blue Bloods
During an initial singles run he struggled to find his footing, but even so would continually put on great in-ring performances, always helping to elevate his opponents. In 1991 he would defeat Arn Anderson for the World Television Championship, his sole WCW singles championship. He would also put on a star-making performance with Ric Flair on several occasions. One thing to note is that every time he battled Flair, it was due to Flair’s backstage influence and choosing to have Eaton as his opponent.
In 1992, Eaton would join the Dangerous Alliance, a group of talent put together by Paul E. Dangerously that also included a star-studded lineup of Arn Anderson, Larry Zbyszko, Rick Rude, Madusa and Steve Austin (who interestingly enough was the man who dethroned Eaton as Television Champion). As many know, the true highlight of this run was arguably the greatest War Games match in history against Sting’s Squadron.
Following the dissolution of the Dangerous Alliance, Eaton would float around the lower mid-card, before being teamed with Steve Regal as the Blue Bloods. It was a good team made up of two of the best workers in the business, but never quite took off. Following this run Eaton again floated around the roster, helping mentor younger talents and making them look good.
One special match that occurred in his later years was against the Macho Man Randy Savage on an episode of WCW Worldwide. Due to their history together and the respect that Savage had for Eaton, he refused to simply squash his opponent and used a number of run-ins and heel tactics to get the underhanded victory.
Life After WCW
Following his release from WCW, Eaton would make brief appearances on the indies, continuing to work sporadically until he had his final match in October of 2015, fittingly against Ricky Morton of the Rock N’ Roll Express.
Bobby Eaton is fittingly known as not just one of the greatest workers in the history of the business, but in this writer’s personal opinion, he is the greatest tag team wrestler ever. His influence on the tag team style cannot be understated, with his constant use of the quick-tag and ability to come up with different double team attacks. William Regal once said that Eaton had “incredible precision to everything he did.” On a recent episode of the ARN Show podcast, Anderson spoke highly of his good friend speaking on what it was like to work with Eaton in the ring.
“I knew it was gonna be a great match because Bobby Eaton was in it. I could’ve had the flu, had one broken leg or one arm in a cast, and he would’ve still had a great match. But as I’m recapping my history with him, that put me at 0-2. The Midnight Express, he beat me. And he beat me for my TV title. I should’ve probably learned back then, leave him alone. He’s got your number. He’s one of those guys who’s in that realm with Brad Armstrong, Ricky Morton, Shawn Michaels, Ricky Steamboat – he’s one of those guys you really don’t know how good he is until you’re in the ring with him.
He’s just everywhere he needs to be at the right time. He accelerates when he needs to and pumps the brakes when he needs to. His instincts…..when he hit an offensive move, you could feel it out in the audience that it just jarred your teeth. He was one of those rare guys where everything he did was flawless.”
One of the most notable things about Bobby Eaton outside of the realm of professional wrestling was just how good of a person he is. On more than one occasion it has been noted by his colleagues that he was quite simply too nice for the wrestling business. Jim Cornette has stated there were times when the Midnight Express would be on the road and when they would make a pit stop if Eaton were to see someone who was homeless or down on their luck, he would be sure to buy them some food and drink, as well as give them money and just speak with them to get to know them a little bit.
Eaton is well known for never speaking a negative word about anybody, no matter the circumstances. Conrad Thompson noted during one of his stage shows with Tony Schiavone where Bobby appeared as a special guest that he tried to get him to admit who the worst wrestler he ever worked with was, and he refused to answer the question, both on stage and backstage where no one would have heard him.
Beautiful Bobby Eaton was not only a very special talent in the ring, he was an even better human being. The tragedy of him passing away at a young age, within a month of his wife Donna passing away from breast cancer, is absolutely heartbreaking. If you are a younger fan who may not be familiar with Eaton and his career, I implore you to go search out some of his work. The man helped to redefine tag team wrestling in the same way that teams like The Dudleyz, The Hardy Boyz and Edge & Christian would a generation later.
Recommended Bobby Eaton Matches:
Midnight Express vs. Rock N’ Roll Express – Mid-South Tag Team Championship No DQ Match (Mid-South Wrestling – May 26, 1984)
Midnight Express vs. Road Warriors – Skywalkers Scaffold Match (Starrcade 1986 – November 27, 1986)
Midnight Express vs. Southern Boys – United States Tag Team Championship Match (Great American Bash 1990 – July 7th, 1990)
Bobby Eaton vs. Ric Flair – WCW World Heavyweight Championship 2 Out Of 3 Falls (Clash Of The Champions 15 – June 12, 1991)
Dangerous Alliance vs. Sting’s Squadron – War Games Match (WrestleWar 1992 – May 17, 1992)
As a final note, a GoFundMe has been put together to help pay for the funeral expenses for Bobby Eaton due to his unexpected death.
Farewell Beautiful Bobby, and thank you for the memories and the matches.
