with the first one to exit being declared the winner). Lethal and Sabin were both climbing over the same side of the cage, fighting as they went, and Sabin kicked Lethal's leg so that his leg went through the bars of the cage, trapping him there while Sabin jumped down and won the match. On the April 26 episode of Impact! Lethal and tag team partner, Sonjay Dutt, who had rejected Nash's idea for his new gimmick, won a shot at the X Division Championship held by Chris Sabin at Sacrifice. Dutt, however, was unhappy at Lethal getting the pinfall. After their loss to Sabin at Sacrifice, both Dutt and Lethal started brawling until Kevin Nash came out and separated the two until Dutt kicked Nash and stormed out of the ring visibly upset. On May 8, TNA Mobile announced that Randy Savage himself called Jay Lethal and said that he loved the "Black Machismo" character as the two spoke on the phone for several minutes. However, Lethal subsequently expressed doubt over whether he had really spoken with Savage as the Macho Man's trademark voice is easily imitated. At Slammiversary, Lethal defeated Chris Sabin in a singles match for the X Division Championship, his first title in TNA. Only days later, however, on the following Impact!, he lost the title to Samoa Joe after Chris Sabin was pinned, in a Match of Champions three-way qualifying match. At Victory Road Lethal competed in an Ultimate X gauntlet match in a losing effort after Christopher Daniels retrieved the X. At Hard Justice Lethal and Sonjay Dutt, who had made peace with Lethal after coming up with the gimmick of a guru, defeated Triple X's Christopher Daniels and Senshi and The Motor City Machineguns (Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin) in a three-way tag match when Lethal pinned Daniels. This led to Jim Cornette booking a match on the August 16 episode of Impact! pitting Daniels versus Lethal with the winner becoming the number one contender to the X Division title, which Lethal would go on to win. As a result of that Lethal would go on to face Triple Crown champion Kurt Angle for the X Division title at No Surrender, where Lethal would beat Angle cleanly with a roll-up to win the X Division Championship for the second time. At Genesis Lethal successfully defended his X Division Championship against his best friend,