Cryme Tyme

In late 2006, WWE debuted **Cryme Tyme** (Shad Gaspard and JTG) on the main *Raw* brand roster, starting by having them work live events and dark matches. On the September 4 episode of *Raw*, vignettes began airing to promote the debut of the team, showing them "training" for their pending debut on the show. The vignettes, which aired weekly, featured Cryme Tyme robbing people while an announcer dubbed their actions "training exercises" designed to work on things like "speed", "agility", "drive", "endurance", and "intensity". Cryme Tyme wrestled as fan favorites at live events and in dark matches, finally making their television debut, defeating Johnny and Mikey of The Spirit Squad on the October 16 episode of *Raw*. After arriving on *Raw*, they were depicted covertly stealing things, such as Jerry Lawler's laptop, and a plasma screen TV, during interviews and while celebrating wins with the announce team.

On November 5, the team made their pay-per-view debut at Cyber Sunday, defeating Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch, The Highlanders (Rory and Robbie McAllister), and Charlie Haas and Viscera in a four team tornado tag team match. Around the same time, they began a feud with The World's Greatest Tag Team (Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas), during which Benjamin began to express disgust with Cryme Tyme's antics, calling them offensive and harmful to the black community. During the storyline, Haas started "acting black", but after the World's Greatest Tag Team handed Cryme Tyme their first loss on the January 29, 2007, episode of *Raw*, the program was dropped, with Cryme Tyme appearing mainly on *Raw*'s sister show *Heat*, only appearing on *Raw* in backstage segments.

The duo returned to *Raw* in July 2007 with a new gimmick, which saw them taking items and auctioning them off to the crowd. This led to a feud with then-World Tag Team Champions Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch, but both JTG and Gaspard were released from their WWE contracts on September 2, 2007, before the feud was resolved.

JTG and Gaspard returned to WWE under the Cryme Tyme name on the March 31 episode of *Raw* in 2008, defeating Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch. Cryme Tyme began working with John Cena on the June 30 episode of *Raw* when they helped him interfere during John "Bradshaw" Layfield's match. The following week on *Raw*, they again appeared together in a segment when they vandalized JBL's limo. After a live event match, Cena confirmed that they had created a faction and announced that it was called CTC or "Cryme Tyme Cenation". Separately, Cryme Tyme started a feud with then-World Tag Team Champions Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase, stealing their championship belts for a time, then losing a title match to them at Unforgiven. The CTC quietly separated after Cena's injury.

On April 15, 2009, Cryme Tyme were drafted to the *SmackDown* brand as part of the 2009 supplemental draft. Eve Torres later became their valet, accompanying them to the ring and appearing in backstage segments with them. Later, Torres and Cryme Tyme got into a feud with The Hart Dynasty. They competed in six-person mixed tag team, singles and tag team matches. On the July 31 episode of *SmackDown*, they became the number one contenders to the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship by defeating The Hart Dynasty, but Cryme Tyme was defeated by then champions Jeri-Show (Chris Jericho and Big Show) at SummerSlam.

Cryme Tyme was supposed to compete for Team *SmackDown* at Bragging Rights. However, due to health concerns regarding Gaspard, Cryme Tyme (along with most of the *SmackDown* team) was replaced by Matt Hardy, R-Truth, The Hart Dynasty and Finlay. On the March 5 episode of *SmackDown*, they had a number one contenders match against The Miz and Big Show for the Unified WWE Tag Team Championships, along with John Morrison and R-Truth and The Hart Dynasty, but they failed to win the match. The following week on *SmackDown*, Cryme Tyme were facing The Hart Dynasty, but were attacked by The Undertaker while he was sending a direct message to Shawn Michaels for a match at WrestleMania XXVI.

At WrestleMania XXVI, both members of Cryme Tyme competed in the dark match battle royal, where JTG would be eliminated by Gaspard. Just days later on *SmackDown*, after a quick loss to John Morrison and R-Truth, Gaspard was enraged and attacked JTG for not coming to his rescue in the match, thus turning Gaspard heel for the first time in his WWE brand career and second time in his wrestling career. The next week on *SmackDown*, Gaspard came to the ring and announced that he was done with Cryme Tyme and announced again that it was his time. Afterwards, an enraged JTG came out ready to fight him, but got kicked in the face by Gaspard for his troubles. This would lead to a strap match at Extreme Rules, which was won by JTG. The two had a standard rematch on the May 6 episode of *Superstars*, which Shad won by pinfall, thus ending their feud. Gaspard was later released from his WWE contract on November 19, 2010.