X-Division title falls twice during Ultimate X match.

On August 20, 2003 during TNA's Weekly pay-per-view event, Chris Sabin defended his X-Division title against Michael Shane & Frankie Kazarian in the first ever Ultimate X match.

For those who don't know, an Ultimate X match is a TNA-born gimmick match, usually with three-way dance or fatal four way rules and consisting of X-Division wrestlers. Traditionally, a championship belt (or sometimes a red x) is hung in the middle of crisscrossing steel cables, suspended from 4 steel posts, that form a "X" shape above the ring. This was TNA's answer to WWE's TLC matches that had already made a reputation in wrestling for producing good matches with dangerous but innovative spots. However, the end result of the first Ultimate X match proved nearly disastrous.

You see before TNA debuted it's 6-sided ring, the Ultimate X match used bare steel wires which were not secured in the center, allowing them to bounce separately. So every time in the match when a wrestler would be hanging from one of the the wires and let go, the wires would bounce individually causing the championship belt's buttons to become undone gradually throughout the match.

At one point, Michael Shane nailed Chris Sabin with a chair while he was hanging from one of the wires. Sabin let go and dropped, and the belt followed seconds afterwards landing right beside Sabin. However, Sabin winning the match was not the planned finish and he had to improvise. Sabin saw what had happened but acted other-wise rolling in the opposite direction of the belt.

The referee appeared to look confused at first but then grabbed the belt seconds later and stood awkwardly in the corner with it, obviously waiting instructions in his ear piece on what to do. As fans began chanting "We Don't Care!" at the performers, the ref walked outside the ring to inform Jeremy Borash on what to tell the fans about the situation. Borash obviously heard the instructions before hand as he started talking before the referee ever got one word in.

TNA stopped the match but the wrestlers continued anyway, buying time as TNA officials came down to the ring to re-hang the belt. One official climbed the top-rope to hang the belt, but then realized he needed to get it to the center of the ring, causing another official to bring in a ladder. This was ironic due to TNA's tag line for the match which was "No Limits & No Ladders." After nearly 2 minutes, the belt was back up and the match restarted. All seemed well until about 8 minutes later when Sabin went for the belt again.

Sabin was hanging from the wire when Kazarian came off the top rope with a spear and took Sabin down. The wires shook violently and the belt, once again, crashed to the canvas and once again, the match had to be stopped and restarted. This began to annoy the fans in the arena who started chanting "We Want Wrestling" in response. After the second belt fall, the match ended shortly afterwards with Michael Shane capturing the title.

A similar incident would happen later at Ultimate X 8.

 

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