WWE Unforgiven 2008 featured the first Championship Scramble match in WWE history, and Matt Hardy recently looked back on the bout, which also included Mark Henry, The Miz, Chavo Guerrero, and Finlay.
The card for the event included three Championship Scramble matches; the ECW, World Heavyweight, and WWE titles were on the line in three respective bouts for the gold. Hardy competed in the inaugural match, which was for the ECW Championship. Per the rules of the contest, five competitors battled it out for 20 minutes, and during this time period, the participants entered at five-minute intervals. The contestants could become the temporary champion by pinning their opponents or making them submit, and whoever held the title at the end of the bout would actually win the championship.
Speaking on the Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, Hardy was asked to describe how challenging putting together the match was. He noted that it was "tricky", but he liked the way that WWE was trying to do something new.
“It was tricky. I remember it was very, very difficult. There’d never been one before, so we were kind of breaking new ground. We were the first Scramble Match. By the way, Matt Fact: Matt won the first Scramble Match in WWE history. It was tricky, it was an interesting concept, and I dug the fact that they tried something out of the box. They were trying something new and something different. But it was cool, and my favorite part of that match was that, if I’m not mistaken, after I got that last pinfall where I was the current champion or whatever, I remember I kept breaking up every single near fall that happened after that for like three minutes. It was a sprint [laughs]. I remember being so winded towards the end of that because it was an absolute sprint. I said like I want you guys to cover, cover, cover, over. I just want to be trying to save my ass the whole while," Hardy said.
When Hardy won the bout, he became a world champion for the first time in his illustrious career. He held the title until Jack Swagger dethroned him on the January 13, 2009 episode of ECW.
Hardy recently commented on the ways Tony Khan "reshuffled the deck" this past week on AEW Dynamite. You can check out his comments here.
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