on April 9, 2005. He then departed to the WWE developmental Deep South Wrestling. World Wrestling Entertainment Deep South Wrestling (2005) Mailhot began training in WWE's auxiliary developmental territory, Deep South Wrestling. On May 2, 2005 he had a dark match against Todd Hansen, with Hansen gaining the victory. SmackDown! (2005–2006) Mailhot, under his Brian Black ringname made his televised debut with WWE on the January 6, 2005 episode of SmackDown! as a local competitor during the Kurt Angle Invitational where he was quickly defeated by Angle. Later that year he would appear as an authority figure called Palmer Canon. His character was ostensibly a representative of the oppressive "Network". This gimmick reflected what WWE perceived as increasing interference by UPN regarding the content of SmackDown!, most notably UPN's demand that WWE remove Mark Copani's controversial Muhammad Hassan character from television. His character and booking of matches that the fans disliked led to mainly heel reactions. The gimmick was reminiscent of both Right to Censor, a stable created to parody the Parents Television Council, and The Network, an ECW stable led by Cyrus which claimed to represent TNN. The name Palmer Canon might have been a play with the initials "P.C.". This connection between his name and political correctness was made more evident when commentator Tazz called him P.C. when Canon came to do ringside commentary. His character also consisted of booking matches behind the back of Theodore Long (e.g. he made Eddie Guerrero the number one contender, despite Long's wishes to have that right go to Rey Mysterio). He also introduced Marty Wright as "The Boogeyman" as a decision by the network for ratings, added "The Juniors", a midget wrestling division and the tag team "The Dicks" (John Toland and Chad Wicks), though all were later released. Wright's release only lasted two weeks, however. On the February 3, 2006 edition of SmackDown!, William Regal and Paul Burchill told Canon that they no longer wanted to be a tag team so they could go their separate ways. During this discussion Burchill informed Canon that his family heritage traces back to pirates, and that he wanted to do a pirate gimmick on SmackDown! Later, on the April 21, 2006 edition of SmackDown!, Canon remarked that The Miz was acting inappropriately, and had him escorted from the arena by security. On April 20, 2006, Mailhot abruptly flew himself home from a WWE