The Reason Why The Basham's & Gymini Were Fired

Source: The Wrestling Observer Newsletter

There was talk of bringing The Bashams back to SmackDown once Danny's torn biceps injury healed, but that obviously never came to be. Apparently, the call-up of the more colorful, yet far less skilled Deuce & Domino act led to The Bashams being expendable.

Back in May, Todd Shane tore his pectoral muscle, which meant he was going to be out of action for a few months. His injury healed up by the fall season and WWE were planning to bring The Gymini back to SmackDown with Angel Williams as their manager. They worked a few tryout matches before SmackDown crowds back in November, but apparently, WWE officials didn't like what they saw because they probably would have otherwise been on television by December. Soon after, Angel was split from the group in DSW and of course, The Gymini were soon released. To show how little long-term planning was done in their departure, they were still the DSW tag team champions at the time of their termination. They were stripped of their titles the very next day and never mentioned in DSW ever again.

The team of High Impact, which consisted of Mike Taylor and Tony Santarelli, with Mike's wife Tracy as their manager, were the top babyface tag team in DSW since the promotion's inception back in September 2005. This act was actually really close to being called up to the SmackDown roster back in July, but the problem was that WWE officials wanted a heel team to feud with Kendrick & London. Some felt they weren't ready because High Impact worked exclusively as babyfaces in DSW. Their spots on the roster ended up going to the team of Idol Stevens and K.C. James, with Michelle McCool as their manager. Idol and James got the nod over High Impact because they had more wrestling experience and were more natural at being heels. A few months later, High Impact were going to get some WWE tryout matches during the swing of house shows they do right after Christmas. However, Mike Taylor was injured and thus they obviously couldn't go on the road to show their stuff. They were released a few weeks later.