On the December 1, 2009 episode of ECW on Syfy, Trent Barreta, and Caylen Croft debuted as heels, squashing a jobber tag team. The duo would then feud with Goldust and Yoshi Tatsu, which culminated in a loss to Goldust and Tatsu in a match to determine the number one contenders to the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship on the February 9, 2010 episode of ECW.
When the ECW brand ended in February 2010, its roster became free agents. Barreta and Croft signed with SmackDown, making their debut for the brand on February 19 in a losing effort against Cryme Tyme. Baretta and Croft would then feud with The Hart Dynasty, but could never manage a win against them. In April, they began using their Dude Busters name again, which they had seemingly dropped since debuting in ECW.
The Dude Busters then turned face when they entered into a feud with the Gatecrashers (Curt Hawkins and Vance Archer) in August. The Dude Busters then earned their first tag team victory since joining the SmackDown roster when they defeated the Gatecrashers on the August 26 edition of Superstars.
On November 19, Caylen Croft was released from his contract, effectively ending The Dude Busters and turning Barreta into a singles competitor fully. After becoming as a singles competitor, Barreta would largely be involved in lower-card feuds. During this period, a majority of his matches would be on Superstars, and when he appeared on SmackDown, he would almost always lose, only garnering a single win when appearing on SmackDown as of August 2011.
Barreta would then continue to feud with Hawkins, whose partner Archer had also been released together with Croft. Both wrestlers would exchange wins in various matches on Superstars. Barreta would then feud with Drew McIntyre, even managing to earn an upset victory over Drew on the January 14, 2011 edition of SmackDown, his first singles win on SmackDown since the breakup of the Dude Busters.
In 2011, Barreta would largely be used as enhancement talent, mostly competing on WWE Superstars and losing to the various Superstars, such as Cody Rhodes, Jack Swagger, Tyler Reks and Ted DiBiase, as well as Wade Barrett, Heath Slater and Jinder Mahal. From April, Barreta would enter into a long rivalry with Tyson Kidd, but he found himself on the losing end in five singles matches against Kidd. However, Baretta managed a win over Kidd when he teamed with The Usos to beat Kidd, Justin Gabriel and Heath Slater on the June 30, 2011 edition of WWE Superstars. Barreta finally defeated Kidd in a singles match on the August 23 edition of NXT Redemption. On NXT, Barreta formed an alliance with Yoshi Tatsu; from December 2011, they feuded with Curt Hawkins and Tyler Reks. Both teams would play pranks on each other, with Tatsu being locked in a closet and Reks' hands being superglued onto an Xbox controller on the December 28th and January 4th episodes of NXT Redemption respectively. Barreta successfully broke his losing streak in a singles match, by defeating Hawkins on January 4th, edition of NXT Redemption. Trent continuing his winning streak by defeating Tyler Reks on the January 11 edition of NXT Redemption. The following week, still on NXT Redemption he went onto a losing effort again, this time against Heath Slater. He would then stay inactive for the rest of the year, until he was released on January 11, 2013.