Danny Holly

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Danny Holly


Statistics
Ring name(s)	Damaja Danny Holliday The Damaja Danny Basham Riot Guard #2
Billed height	6 ft 3 in (190 cm)
Billed weight	250 lb (113 kg)
Born	October 3, 1979 Seymour, Indiana
Billed from	Columbus, Ohio
Trained by	Danny Davis Jim Cornette Doug Basham
Debut	1999

Daniel "Danny" Holly (born October 3, 1979) better known as Danny Basham is a professional wrestler. Formerly of World Wrestling Entertainment. Primarily wrestling on SmackDown!, he also had stints on RAW, and ECW brand.

1 Career
2 In wrestling
3 Championships and accomplishments

[edit] Career

Holly made his wrestling debut in Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), as the Damaja. On January 6, 1999 he and David C. were awarded the OVW Tag Title when Nick Dinsmore no-showed and Rob Conway was counted out. He was also a three-time OVW Champion, defeating the likes of Dinsmore, Flash Flanagan, and Nova. In 2003 he was given the managerial services of Tough Enough II winner Shaniqua.

[edit] World Wrestling Entertainment

In 2000 Danny Holly made a few appearances on WWF Jakked and in Dark Matches under the ring name Danny Holliday. In late 2002 through early 2003 Holly worked dark matches before the RAW and SmackDown! tapings under his OVW gimmick and ring name, Damaja.

[edit] SmackDown!

On May 29, 2003 Danny made his WWE television debut (as Danny Basham), teaming with Doug Basham to form the heel tag team, the Basham Brothers. The Bashams (as they were commonly known) were later aligned with the valet, Shaniqua. As well as being portrayed with a bondage-based S&M gimmick, the "brothers" often switched places mid-match, so the "fresher" wrestler was always in the ring. In almost all cases, the referee acted oblivious to the switch, despite their easily differentiated faces and won their first WWE Tag Team Championship from Los Guerreros on the October 23, 2003 edition of SmackDown!. The team would go on to lose the titles in February 2004 to Rikishi and Scotty 2 Hotty. The Basham Brothers and Shaniqua faced Scotty 2 Hotty and Rikishi at No Way Out 2004 in a handicapped match for the tag team titles but lost the match when Shaniqua was pinned. Right after this match The Basham Brothers would lose their manger Shaniqua as she was sent to OVW for training and eventually released.

For the next few months, the Basham Brothers were regulars on WWE Velocity despite a few occasions on SmackDown!, generally losing their matches.

The Basham Brothers would go on to join John Bradshaw Layfield's cabinet stable on November 25 2004. Known as JBL's Co-Secretaries of Defense, their role was often to sacrifice themselves to prevent Layfield from getting harmed after he had provoked an opponent. The Bashams would once again win Tag Team gold by defeating four other teams including Rey Mysterio and Rob Van Dam, Luther Reigns and Mark Jindrak, and Eddie Guerrero and Booker T. The Basham Brothers lost the titles to Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero at No Way Out on February 20, 2005 from here on The Bashams would either be jobbing on SmackDown! or defeating any team that came in their path on Velocity. The Basham Brothers quit Layfield's Cabinet on the June 16, 2005 episode of SmackDown!, claiming that they were tired of being "JBL's crash test dummies" and not getting enough respect.

On June 30, 2005 Danny Basham became one of the last-minute trades in the 2005 WWE Draft, which saw him leave SmackDown! for RAW. This marked the end of the partnership with his "twin brother," who remained on SmackDown!

[edit] RAW

On the July 18 edition of RAW, Danny Basham made his first appearance on the RAW brand as one of Chris Jericho's hand picked lumberjacks in the Lumberjack match between John Cena and Gene Snitsky in which Jericho picked all heel lumberjacks to make the odds unfair for Cena hoping Snitsky would win. At the end, the babyface superstars came out to make the odds even and Cena picked up the win with the FU. During Basham's appearance he wore his Secretaries of Defense ring attire.

In August 2005 Holly worked dark matches during RAW tapings under his former gimmick, The Damaja and made his televised debut on the September 11, 2005 edition of WWE Heat (as Danny Basham) under his Damaja gimmick, only more gothic and Raven-like. Danny came out with new music, black face paint, and a black track jacket with a hood, chains, and zippers all over it. Danny's ring attire consisted of black boots and baggy black pants with hooks and chains on them.

Holly soon disappeared from television again but continued to work squash matches under this gimmick very sporadically at house shows or in dark matches over the next several months before completely disappearing from in-ring competition in 2006 before signing a new deal with WWE in April of that year.

[edit] Extreme Championship Wrestling

Both Danny Holly and Doug Basham would reunite in WWE's revived ECW brand during July 2006 at several house shows before becoming on-screen unnamed masked "Security Enforcers" for ECW leader Paul Heyman. However, when Danny was injured with a torn bicep, he was later replaced by Derek Neikirk, who continued Danny's role as the second masked enforcer.

[edit] Ohio Valley Wrestling

In November 18, 2006 OVW show, Holly made a surprising return when OVW owner Danny Davis introduced Danny Basham as the "OVW TroubleShooter" ( similar to a General Manager), granting him the power to direct each OVW show.

On January 18, 2007, WWE announced the release of 11 superstars, both of the Basham Brothers included.

However on March 7, 2007 The Basham Brothers returned to OVW and defeated Wyatt Young & Mike Tolar in a dark match. No word if the Bashams will be resigned.