Norvell Austin: Difference between revisions

In 1980 a new team was formed in Southeast Championship Wrestling when [[Dennis Condrey]]'s previous partner Don Carson retired. Condrey teamed up with [[Randy Rose]] and won the [[NWA Southeast Tag Team Championship]] shortly after they started teaming up.<ref name="Titles"/> The team started a storyline feud with Austin who wrestled as "The Junkyard Dog" before the more famous version of the [[Junkyard Dog]] used the name in wrestling. Austin recruited various partners such as [[Paul Orndorff]], who were successful in capturing the Southeast tag team gold briefly.<ref name="Titles"/> In an attempt to throw Rose and Condrey off Austin would adopt the masked persona of "The Shadow" and together with Brad Armstrong defeat the team for the Southeast tag team gold on May 4, 1981, and held onto the gold until July 27, 1981, where Condrey and Rose regained the titles. After the title loss Austin turned on Armstrong and joined up with Condrey and Rose to form a [[Glossary of professional wrestling terms#Stable|stable]] (group) known as [[The Midnight Express (professional wrestling)|The Midnight Express]].<ref name="TagMidnight">{{cite book |author1=Greg Oliver |author2=Steve Johnson |name-list-style=amp | title= The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Tag Teams | publisher=ECW Press | year=2005| chapter= the Top 20: 10 The Midnight Express | pages= 58–62 | isbn=978-1-55022-683-6}}</ref> In the book ''The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Tag Teams'' Condrey explains that the name did not stem from the movie [[Midnight Express (film)|Midnight Express]] (although later versions of the Midnight Express would use the film’sfilm's theme as their own theme music) but from the fact that they all dressed in black, drove black cars and were out partying past midnight.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Greg Oliver |author2=Steve Johnson |name-list-style=amp | title= The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Tag Teams | publisher=ECW Press | year=2005| chapter= the Top 20: 10 The Midnight Express | pages= 59 | quote = “At once time, we all dressed in black. We had black Lincolns, black automobiles and everything else, and we were all out until midnight, so we went as the Midnight Express. | isbn=978-1-55022-683-6}}</ref> Together the three men would win the AWA Southern Tag Team title in the CWA and invoke a rule that would later be referred to as [[Fabulous Freebirds#Freebird Rule|the Freebird Rule]], which allowed any two of the three men to defend the titles on a given night so that their opponents never knew what combination to expect.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Greg Oliver |author2=Steve Johnson |name-list-style=amp | title= The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Tag Teams | publisher=ECW Press | year=2005| chapter= the Top 20: 7 The Fabulous Freebirds | pages= 46–52 | isbn=978-1-55022-683-6}}</ref> The Midnight Express would lose the AWA Southern tag team title to [[Bobby Eaton]] and [[James Ware (wrestler)|Sweet Brown Sugar]] before returning to SECW in the spring of 1982.<ref name="Titles"/>

By the end of the summer of 1985 the Pretty Young Things went their separate ways with Austin returning to his old stomping grounds in Southeast Championship Wrestling. In SECW Austin was teamed up with fellow African American [[Brickhouse Brown]] to form a team called "Soul Patrol". On September 23, 1985, the Soul Patrol defeated the Nightmares to win the NWA Southeast Tag Team Championship, which was Norvell Austin's tenth reign with that particular title. The Soul Patrol lost the championship to the Nightmares only a few weeks later on.<ref name="Titles"/> After the Soul Patrol broke up Austin became involved in a heated storyline with the at the time reigning NWA Southeastern Heavyweight Champion [[Adrian Street|"Exotic" Adrian Street]]. On January 6, 1986, Austin defeated Street for the title and held on to it until Street with the help of his valet Miss Linda regained the title on February 17, 1986.