After pushing back Curtis to Sept. 11, 50 Cent got a big surprise when Kanye West moved Graduation to the same release date in order to create a head-to-head matchup. Fiddy's first two albums far outsold West's first two, which might be why he promised to retire if Curtis didn't come out on top.

Welcome to retirement, Fiddy.

For the week ended Sunday, Graduation took the number one spot, selling 957,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan numbers released today. Curtis trailed by more than 265,000 copies, landing in the number two spot with 691,000 copies sold. Graduation also topped the charts in the U.K., Canada, Japan and set a new single-week record for digital sales with more than 132,000 downloads.

"I just want people to listen to the album all the way through and tell their friends," West told E! News' Ryan Seacrest today. "It was incredible, the amount of support. It seems like my whole life I've been trying to break through and I've been the underdog. Anybody who didn't get the album, please go out and buy it. We're trying to take this album to 10 million. You don't understand, those numbers are like 'N Sync numbers in their day."

"The rivalry helped both of them," said Def Jam President Jay-Z, who originally signed West to his Roc-a-Fella label, speaking with the Associated Press. "It was definitely one of those moments in the game that was exciting, everybody could pick a side and weigh in and have an opinion...it garnered a lot of attention."

That attention translated into record sales. Graduation, Curtis and the other Sept. 11 releases posted the largest Billboard 200 sales tally in two years. It's also the second time in SoundScan history that two albums debuted with more than 600,000 copies each, a feat previously accomplished by Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion I (685,000 copies) and II (770,000).

Graduation, now the 15th largest debut in the SoundScan era, is also the first debuting album to top the 800,000-mark since West's previous album, Late Registration, sold 860,000 copies in the summer of '05. Interestingly, the last album to sell more first-week copies is Fiddy's last release, The Massacre, which sold 1.1 million copies in early '05.

Among other contributing factors, Graduation benefited from stronger radio spins. His single "Stronger" just reached number one on the Hot 100, while Fiddy's "Ayo Technology" barely cracked the Top 20, failing to give the rapper the type of smash hit that preceded his previous discs.

50 Cent previously scoffed at the competition, saying it was West's way of pretending they were comparable stars. Nevertheless, he helped promote the hip-hop battle by appearing with West on MTV, BET and a Rolling Stone cover. After coming in second, a shocked 50 Cent gave his competitor his due.

"I am very excited to have participated in one of the biggest album release weeks in the last two years," Fiddy told the AP. "Collectively, we have sold hundreds of thousands of units in our debut week. This marks a great moment for hip-hop music, one that will go down in history."

Should 50 Cent actually retire after coming in second, he will still release his fourth album, Before I Self-Destruct, which he actually recorded before Curtis. With the release of Self-Destruct and a likely greatest hits album, Fiddy fulfills his current contract and becomes a free agent again.

Since losing the chart battle, Fiddy said he wants to release projects whenever Def Jam has a priority release, which suggests his retirement might be short-lived.

Though the Kanye-Fiddy fight nabbed the headlines, country crooner Kenny Chesney roped in a solid first week himself. The reigning ACM and CMA Entertainer of the Year sold nearly 387,000 copies of his latest, Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates, to take the number three spot.

Just Who I Am is off to a great start on country radio. The lead single, "Never Wanted Nothing More," marked the singer's fastest rise to number one, and the follow-up single, "Don't Blink," made history with the biggest first-week bow (No. 16) on the Hot Country Songs chart, a record that Garth Brooks topped a week later with "More Than a Memory." Despite all his radio success, Chesney's number three bow—thanks to Fiddy and West—is the singer's lowest studio-album debut since 1999's Everywhere We Go opened at 51.

With three new albums taking the top three spots, High School Musical 2's number one reign ended at four weeks. Still, the disc sold another 133,000 copies for the number four spot, while its track "What Time Is It" continued to top the single sales chart.

Remarkably, sales of the top four albums combined for 2.2 million copies, which topped the entire Billboard 200 sales for the week previous.

Outside the four big sellers, Colbie Caillat's Coco returned to the Top 10 moving up six spots to number eight, while Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds climbed two positions to numner 10. Since his concert special debuted on HBO a few weeks ago, J.T.'s album leapt 22 spots.

The rest of the Top 10, all holdovers, included Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus at five, Fergie's The Dutchess at six, Nickelback's All the Right Reasons at seven and Now That's What I Call Music! 25 in the nine spot.

Other noteworthy debuts this week included the Grey's Anatomy, Vol. 3 soundtrack at 16; Trisha Yearwood's Greatest Hits at 22; B5's Don't Talk, Just Listen at 27; Cupid's Time for a Change at 57; Pinback's Autumn of the Seraphs at 68; Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam at 71; Iced Earth's Framing Armageddon: Something Wicked Part 1 at 78; Hot Hot Heat's Happiness Ltd. at 85; Ani DiFranco's Canon at 88; and Heart singer Ann Wilson at 106 with her first solo album, Hope & Glory.

To recap, the week's Top 10 albums are as follows:

1. Graduation, Kanye West
2. Curtis, 50 Cent
3. Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates, Kenny Chesney
4. High School Musical 2 soundtrack, various
5. Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus, Miley Cyrus
6. The Dutchess, Fergie
7. All the Right Reasons, Nickelback
8. Coco, Colbie Caillat
9. Now That's What I Call Music! 25, various
10. FutureSex/LoveSounds, Justin Timberlake