X Games IX became the scene of the most controversial topic to come out of FMX all year as Brian Deegan and Travis Pastrana both staked claim to the previously mythical 360.

It was Saturday night at the Freestyle event and the crowd was getting used to standing ovations. Brian Deegan had already pulled a 75-foot back flip when the horn sounded ending his run. But he wasn't done. He paused and charged.

Depending on who reports the move, you get a list of names for what he did. Some call it an off-axis flip. Some call it a flat spin 360. Maybe it was a 360 backflip or a "Mulisha Twist." It was actually closer to a 270 than a 360, but one thing is for certain. Nobody had ever seen anything like it before.

When golden boy, Travis Pastrana came up for his run, he had no choice. He had to try it. Like Deegan, he pulled a huge flip over the 75-foot gap. And like Deegan, the buzzer sounded ending his run. And like Deegan, he went for it. Pastrana's 360 was closer to a full rotation, but it still wasn't a "true 360" the way it's done on a smaller bike.

"If you throw too soon," said Pastrana, explaining the mechanics of the move, "the suspension snaps back -unlike on a bicycle. The goal that night was a 360 flat spin. What Deegan did was an off-axis flip. It's ten times harder than a flip."

The following night, the Big Air fans got to see Deegan's trick for themselves, but this time, it looked even less like a 360. He was quoted after the comp, saying, "The 360 feels like a back flip, but doesn't feel quite right."

On the Metal Mulisha website however, he writes, "Winning didn't really matter to me. I wanted to be the first one to stick a 360 and I did."

No matter who you ask, though, it still comes down to this: Neither Deegan nor Pastrana did the trick before the buzzer. No matter how many variations of the 360 have been pulled in FMX, we have yet to see one in competition.

I don't know about you, but I'm sensing big things for the Action Sports Championships.