deal with the departure of the entertaining personalities of John Kruk and Michael Irvin to ESPN. They experimented with numerous guest hosts to a varying degree of success. Among just a few of the names to sit in the Best Damn chairs alongside Rose and Salley as part-time hosts were Bryan Cox, Ray Crockett, Ron Darling, Rocket Ismail, Kevin Kennedy, Brian Bosworth, Eric Dickerson, Herschel Walker, Jason Sehorn, Steve Lyons, and Tony Bruno. At times, the show would struggle to find its camaraderie among its cast because of the frequent changes to its main panel. Different themes and specialty weeks were tried for the show. One example was "Best Damn Decades Week", in which every day of the week represented a different decade in sports. Jim Brown, Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, and Phil Jackson appeared on the show on separate days to represent the respective decades they dominated. Bob Eubanks even appeared to host a "Best Damn Newlywed Game" for "1970s day", in which the Best Damn hosts brought in their actual wives for a real game show on air. Rick Springfield brought his entire band on the set to perform the classic hit "Jessie's Girl" for "1980s day". In October, Best Damn did a "Date the Pros" contest, where girls entered a competition to win a date with former wide receiver Johnnie Morton. In late October, all the hosts dressed up in costume for the entire show to celebrate Halloween. All guests on set and on satellite also dressed up in costume. Since then, it has been a yearly Halloween tradition on the Best Damn set, along with a custom-carved Best Damn pumpkin for each of the Best Damn hosts. On October 27, 2004, Best Damn partnered with professional wrestling promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) to produce a two night television special The Best Damn Wrestling Event Period which aired on November 10 and 11. 2005: New direction for the show The beginning of the year presented a crossroads for the show, as its ratings had plateaued and after being on the air for over three years, some felt it needed to be reinvented. In January 2005, following the Christmas/New Year's break, the program was revamped to appear like a late-night talk show. Original host Rose was dropped, and Arnold was made the headlining star with Salley as his sidekick. Sitting behind a desk, Arnold did comedy bits