Bully Ray: Chris Sabin's TNA World Title Win Was Done For All The Wrong Reasons
Bully Ray felt it was wrong to lose the title to Chris Sabin in the manner he did
Jun 22, 2022
Former TNA star Bully Ray has criticised the company's decision to have him lose the TNA World Championship to Chris Sabin in 2013, saying it happened for 'all the wrong reasons'.
Bully's 130-day title run came to an end at the Destination X pay-per-view, when Sabin voluntarily handed in his X-Division Title in exchange for a shot at the company's main prize.
Appearing on this week's episode of the 83 Weeks podcast, Bully Ray discussed the situation with Eric Bischoff, saying that while he has tremendous respect for Sabin as a performer, the situation only came about because the promotion did not want to pay for Sabin's medical expenses:
"Eric [Bischoff] had to talk me off the ledge on that one. It was done for all the wrong reasons. I like Chris Sabin, I always have liked Chris Sabin. Me and D-Von against The Motor City Machine Guns, we had great chemistry with them. Nobody has ever kicked out of the 3D except Chris Sabin. That to me was a big deal, me and D-Von protected our finish for so long that nobody had ever kicked out of it. He did. It was part of me and D-Von’s story.
"So all the props in the world to Chris Sabin, double thumbs-up, yadda yadda yadda. That belt was never supposed to come off of me, it was supposed to stay on me for one year and I was supposed to drop it to AJ Styles at Bound For Glory the following year. But Chris Sabin had gotten injured and I don't know how deep Eric wants to go into this. Sabin got injured and I don't believe TNA wanted to pay for his surgery.
"I went to Eric and I was like 'this is wrong, this is not right, they're not gonna pop for him winning, they're gonna pop for me losing, we're putting him in a bad spot, he's not gonna come out better on the other end of this', and Eric agreed. I did not wanna see Chris Sabin fall on his face at this time because of this situation. Eric told me 'nothing I can do about it, just go out there and lay down'. Okay, no problem. It was way above my pay grade and anybody that tells you a different story is a f*****g liar".
Bischoff then confirmed that the call to have Bully lose the title to Sabin was not a creative decision, but an 'office' one.
Bully would reclaim the title on the Hardcore Justice episode of IMPACT 28 days later, before dropping it to Styles at Bound for Glory as planned.
H/T TJR Wrestling
