Chris Sabin Talks How Unsafe The First TNA Ultimate X Match Was

IMPACT Wrestling Tag Team Champion and former TNA Champion Chris Sabin recently appeared on the Chris Van Vliet show.

Chris Sabin is one of the names synonymous with TNA’s X Division, with the former X Division Champion having appeared in the most amount of ‘Ultimate X’ matches in company history. Ultimate X would become the crown jewel of the division, with Sabin having appeared in 17 matches and winning 8.

“I don’t think you can” Chris Sabin would reply, when asked how he would prepare for the Ultimate X match. “I remember the first Ultimate X match we did? They [the company] weren’t even prepared.” The first Ultimate X match took place on August 20, 2003 and saw Sabin face Michael Shane (Matt Bentley) and Frankie Kazarian.

“They put these posts…like they hadn’t had the structure set up yet” Sabin would continue. “So we went there the day before just to like see the structure, climb up on it. Make sure see how sturdy it is, just to get a feel for it. And I remember when they had recently put these posts in the corner posts, like just these long poles and they had two cables going across.”

Chris Sabin would elaborate further, saying “I remember Frankie [Kazarian] climbed up and grabbed down in the middle and tried to hang on it. And then those posts? They just kind of bent in, like, ‘oh no what are we going to do!?’ So they were scrambling to figure out a way to build a structure because they had this match advertised!”

“And then, what they finally ended up doing was using like the light trusses. They used straps to strap it to the ring posts and that ended up being strong enough” Sabin continued.

“So we didn’t even have any experience with it, we didn’t even get to climb on the structure at all, get a feel for it at all. Basically when the match happened? That was the first time we were climbing on that thing so we were just kind of hoping that this thing stays together!”