Condrey bumps to the floor off of a Shawn punch and they do a cool sequence with Jannetty hitting atomic drops on the floor on both heels with the one on Rose being especially great. Jannetty patting Rose's ass as he leaned on the apron was an amusing taunt as well. Express goes to leave so the Rockers just grab the tag belts and the heels come marching back. Cool spot with Shawn whipping Condrey into the face corner and Jannetty stepping aside and then getting a running start to hit a big clothesline. Cool bit with the heels trying the same spot but the whip gets reversed and they end up decking each other. Jannetty does the Owen Hart style moonsault/slingshot into a hip toss on Rose. Shawn takes a sick bump on a rope running spot as Condrey drops the top rope. Condrey follows up with a sick back breaker and rams Shawn into the apron. Outside-in suplex for a near fall. Shawn goes to a rope running spot and takes the awesome flip bump on a clothesline for another near fall. Another sick Condrey backbreaker and they do a cool spot with Condrey locking on a Camel Clutch, Shawn managing to get to his feet and then Condrey desperately raking the eyes to avoid the comeback. Michaels with another nice bump this time off a fiery comeback attempt that ended on the point of Rose's knee. Rose hits his Vader Bomb move for a near fall. Shawn bridges out of a chinlock and looks to be coming back he's in the wrong corner and the Express lock on an ab stretch that's accentuated with a diving elbow off the ropes to the kidney. Jesus they do the exact same hot tag spot as the Lawler/Dundee match but here Shawn LEAPS on the clothesline and has to kick off Rose who is clutching at his feet which was a nice touch. Marty gets a near fall off a small package but Condrey breaks it up. Pretty lame ref bump with Michaels getting suplexed onto the refs leg. Marty kicks backwards off of Rose while Condrey has him in a full nelson and gets a really disputable looking pinfall. I am not sure you can call this better than the Lawler/Dundee match because of the finish being worse but they are very similar matches and on about the same level.

This was a fun formula match despite the crappy overdone and blown finish. Not sure what happened there. It seemed like the ref only counted 2, and it was messy. But this was real fun. Condrey sold an atomic drop great and took some nice bumps. Michaels bumped big to the floor, Rose looked like a creep, and this was an easyily digestible 14 minutes or so. This should move ahead.

The version of this to use is on the AWA on ESPN 5-1-08 disc as that disc has the full intro of both teams.

AWA World Tag Titles: The Original Midnight Express ("Loverboy" Dennis Condrey & "Ravishing" Randy Rose) © vs. The Midnight Rockers (Marty Jannetty & Shawn Michaels) (12/27/87)

 

The Rockers are back from being on their fired from the AWA tour. Rockers were fun early on when they were shining on the heels who were great at bumping and selling especially after the atomic drops on the floor. OMX hemms and hawws for a bit until the Rockers run for the belts and taunt them with them because in the AWA they could win the belts on a countout. Rockers continue their domination until Shawn takes a wild bump over the top with help from Condrey holding the rope down and then hits a big backbreaker on the floor. OMX works over Shawn's back as he plays FIP and this is really good stuff as Shawn is great at selling everything while trying to make the tag. Jannetty finally tags in and the Showboat erupts as he cleans house on the OMX until the 4-way brawl gets going as Condrey suplexed Shawn into Marty Miller but Jannetty would fall back on Condrey after mule kicking Rose and another referee would come out and count the pin but it looked like Condrey's shoulders were up. Screwy finish but this was a damn solid match and a fairly easy nomination.