Danny Basham’s Short Pro Wrestling Journey

The mid ’00s was a golden time for World Wrestling Entertainment. The likes of Brock Lesnar, Batista, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, The Undertaker and John Cena told their stories and showcased their battles to frenzied fans of the Ruthless Aggression era. Accompanying those marquee singles matches on TV and pay-per-view was a tag team division that featured Doug and Danny Basham.

The Basham Brothers

Starting in Ohio Valley Wrestling in 1998 and securing a WWE developmental contract by 2000, Danny Basham AKA Daniel Hollie, joined the Smackdown brand in 2003. The four-time OVW heavyweight champion honed his craft there ahead of joining the world’s premier sports entertainment brand. Within six months, he and Doug were tag team champions.

“To become champion in such a short time was awesome,” Danny told me in a 2007 episode of the now-defunct PWB Podcast. “Anybody who laces up their boots; their goal is to be champion. And because I’m in a tag team, my goal was to become tag team champion.”

This success was despite being tethered by an unenviable and somewhat bizarre S&M gimmick.

“It wasn’t my first pick, put it that way,” he explained. “I didn’t understand how two brothers, billed from Columbus, Ohio, (would be) doing an S&M gimmick with Shaniqua.”

“We had fun with it and ran with it for a little while. We made the most of the opportunities they gave us.”

They are a lesson to those grapplers not happy with their creative direction. You should always maximise what you have been given and work with it; Danny and Doug did it for years.

“Vince (McMahon) kind of soured on the idea of the whoile gimmick,” he continued, “being too much for the audience.”

Ironic considering what we know now, right?

Reaching Their Pinnacle

They would battle The World’s Greatest Tag Team (Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin), as well as Chavo and Eddie Guerrero, often in 2003. That year, Danny ranked a lofty No.65 in the highly regarded PWI 500.

They would subsequently join JBL in The Cabinet and secure a second run with the tag team titles in 2005. He wished his run as JBL’s underling could have lasted longer; a man he had tremendous respect for.

“He’s not afraid to put somebody in their place if they step out of line,” he revealed about Layfield. “You got to think he’s been around longer than most people there, he’s going to say what happens and what doesn’t happen.”

The Bashams put over Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio in a thunderous tag-team championship bout at No Way Out 2005. Their days at the top of the division were numbered.

They were an underrated tandem that knew how to piss off the fans and how to get their babyface opposition over. Some might say they were a little dull and did little to garner excitement, but that wasn’t what they were paid to do. They were top workers who knew how to do their job.

Danny joined the doomed ECW brand in 2006 as Paul Heyman’s security along with Doug. He rued how Vince’s vision of ECW was a stark contrast to the original ECW and how it was so similar to Raw and Smackdown. He tore his bicep against the F.B.I on an ECW house show and was sidelined for six months. It was his final match in a WWE ring and he was thusly released in January 2007.

The Final Road

Yearning for a lighter schedule that a plethora of ex-WWE superstars had already secured, they joined TNA in the summer of 2007. A feud with the Voodoo Kin Mafia (Road Dogg and Billy Gunn) kept them busy for a series of three consecutive pay-per-views. Known as The Damaja, at that time, he spoke to me to promote 2007’s Victory Road PPV. Yet, just a handful of days prior to the event, he hadn’t been informed of their plans.

“To be honest with you, I don’t know what kind of match (I’m in), I’m assuming it’s going to be some sort of match with VKM (Voodoo Kin Mafia) because that’s who we’ve been feuding with.”

“They kind of leave me out in the dark until the last minute,” he said, peeling back the curtain on the chaos of TNA back then.

Departing the company in August of 2007, just five months after arriving, CageMatch lists his final match as being in 2008 for IPW in Indiana. Leaving the business at the age of just thirty seems a sad way for someone who gave a solid decade of his life to professional wrestling, and achieved success in WWE.