text: The Bashams were given a one-off television appearance on SmackDown! as part of the Tough Enough IV qualifiers. The remaining contestants received 30 seconds each to retrieve a flag from the far corner of the ring. Anyone who succeeded within the time limit would be immune from elimination until the next round. However, the Bashams were the obstacles that were put in place to prevent the challengers from reaching the flag. The Bashams managed to resist all seven finalists consecutively. They also teased hot favorite Daniel Puder by letting him get within 1 inch of the flag in his final seconds of his turn. (Puder had become the hot favorite one week earlier when he almost defeated a fresh Kurt Angle in a real wrestling match in seconds immediately after 3 hours of circuit training specifically designed to wear the contestants out.) Impressed by their performance, the tag team were given a push. The Basham Brothers would go on to join John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL)'s Cabinet faction on November 25 and became known as JBL's Co-Secretaries of Defense. Their role was often to sacrifice themselves to prevent JBL from getting harmed after he had provoked an opponent. The Bashams would once again win the WWE Tag Team Championship defeating the teams of Rey Mysterio and Rob Van Dam, Luther Reigns and Mark Jindrak, and Eddie Guerrero and Booker T in a four-way elimination match in January 2005. The Basham Brothers lost the titles to Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero at No Way Out on February 20. The Bashams would then win sporadically on SmackDown! or defeat any teams that they faced on Velocity. The Basham Brothers quit JBL'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, Danny became one of the last minute trades in the 2005 WWE Draft Lottery, which saw him jump from SmackDown! over to Raw. This left both men in singles competition in WWE on different brands. Basham would return to television on the August 27 edition of Velocity under "The Bash Man" Doug Basham gimmick. The Bash Man came out to the ring wearing sunglasses, a shiny leather vest, and shiny wool pants. Basham continued to work squash matches under this unexplained gimmick sporadically over several months.