H m hmmmm mm hmm.
Welcome back to all the smoke. Day two in our new building.
It's still pretty naked, but we just met with the designer this morning to get some final touches. It's it's gonna come alive, trust me, Jack. I was really excited about this one because one, first of all, I have a lot of respect for what he's done to this space and and and the longevity's had. But also I've been outwardly what's the right word, I can use critical?
Critical?
There you go where we're gonna. We're in the world tidy. I could tell you're already finishing my senses. I've been critical of of sometimes some of his critiques, but you you know me, I'm someone that wants to learn and have conversations about people that I may disagree with or you know, stuff like that. So before I picked my bone with you, mister Bayless, yes, I want to really give you your flowers for what you've been able to do.
I really got a chance to kind of study up on you and your journey with your family and just kind of the way you grinded to the absolute top of this business.
If there is a hall of fame for this.
I'm sure you will be in it one day, but really just what you've meant and the inspiration you've been to a lot of people. You know, you gave Jack his first opportunity, and we'll talk about that in a little bit, but really just wanted to let you know, you know now that you're officially kind of off TV, still in the game, but off TV.
That we really appreciated everything you've done in this space.
Honored by everything you just said. Much respect for you and the man to your right. I've been on TV with both of you, and I'm looking forward to being in your space. Yeah, the view and I hand flowers back to both of you, because you have blazed a new trail and I'm in awe of it. And when I first heard about it, I thought interesting because you both have wisdom and edge that you brought from many many years of playing on the edge, and you brought
it together here. It's a great pairing and you broke through, both of you, and you're on the rise and rising and you haven't seen the top yet. And you should both be congratulated because as players, you both had to fight your way up. That man went, where'd you go? Australia,
Dominican where else? Venezuela right just to get to the league, and you did your G league time and then you both broke through in the league in different ways in different places, and then you recreated here and this is more successful than either of you ever were to me in the league, no question. So congratulations, thanks you and fire away.
Let's get to let's get to the ship now. So obviously again, you know, you guys changed the dynamic with Debate TV. But I felt like, kind of like the last three years and where I kind of was outwardly, you know, critiquing as you would critique, was I kind of felt it went from critiquing the game, it went poor play, shitty team to personal attacks and two people in particular, I felt kind of it got personal at times.
Was with Russell Westbrook and Lebron James. From your experience and understanding who you were, your role, how you really found your niche and again as sail to the top what at one point I felt like there was a line again it was critiquing because I was the job, and then I felt like the line kind of race and it was more personal attacks. Can you kind of address your thinking during that and reasoning or the way you looked at it.
Okay, we got to go one at a time, different situations and circumstances for both of those players. Do who want to start with Lebron?
Whoever you would like to?
Okay, I say what I see and I still believe to this moment, Lebron has been the most overprotected superstar in the history of the game. I have thrown him many, many, many flowers when it's time to throw flowers. I have constantly consistently, though nobody wants to hear me do this, but I've said to this day, to this moment, he's still the best passer in basketball on a nightly basis. As I always say, I watch every dribble of every game.
He will take my breath away twice a game with a pass he'll make where I'll say, that's just special, that's that's a gift. He's a generational passer of the basketball, and I've said a thousand times sometimes to that man. He is easily the greatest driver of the basketball I've ever seen, because he's ambidextrous at six ' nine whatever we give him now to sixty issue and obviously an explosive athlete with the highest IQ in basketball. It's somewhere
between him and Magic with the highest IQ. Ever, to me, that's just me, and I know that's pretty subjective. I frame all this with the positivity, and obviously what he's done off the court is stellar. It's not a leid, but in this day and age, it's close. We know all the racial social justice what he just did with Kamala, but highest marks. Okay, So now we take this man who is the greatest score in the history of this game,
and let's start with this. By his standards, he's a poor three point shooter, and by his standards, he's a pathetic free throw shooter. At seventy four percent for his career, Jordan was eighty four percent Magic Bird, they're ninety ish percent KD ninety percent. There have been so many flame out moments for Lebron in his career. And remember on TV, I was often thrown up against Shannon Sharp, who loves Lebron like a brother, I mean, like like a stalker, right,
I mean it got a little scary for me. Sometimes scared, all right, But he's just proclaiming Lebron better than Jordan. Well, I'm the biggest Jordan fan.
In his I'm with you, I'm with you, I'm I'm withky.
Okay, Like I get goosebumps talking about Michael Jeffery Jordan because I got to know him. I was there in Chicago in ninety eight for the Last Dance Season. Listen, this man is. He's in another universe to me from Lebron Bleeping James. So if you're gonna compare them, I'm gonna say Jordan never had any epic fails and anything he did in the playoffs, even when they lost, when he didn't have Pip yet, he'd score sixty three in overtime.
But Boston and Larry Bird would say, I just saw God in sneakers, you know, like, Okay, all right, So that's the framework of what I'm doing again. Do I hate Lebron? I don't know Lebron. I'm actually happy I don't because I'm afraid if I were around him very much. I think he's a really good guy, a really nice guy, sometimes nice to a fault. Because I was around Jordan a lot, not a nice guy all the time. He was a bad MF man and he wore it on his sleeves and when it was time to be a
bad MF. He scared the hell out of the rest of the league. I don't think Lebron scares the hell out of the rest of the league because I think they all really like him and he wants to be liked to a fault.
Can you give us your reason behind the Westbrook situation?
So this runs deep for me, and there is some personal here. I will admit I was a Kevin Durant fan since he was at Texas. So I was on a show called Cold Pizza in two thousand and four in New York City. I start watching this kid from DC and I say, this is something, man, this is going to be revolutionary. He looks like he's seven feet tall and he's long, and he can shoot the hell
out of it from mid range. I mean shoot the hell out of it like he's shooting little free throws, you know, like it's just it's gimmes where nobody can touch it because he's shooting it up so high that you try to defend him, and hey, you can try. What what are you six eighthesay? So you can go up as hard and as high as you go right on time, you can time it perfectly. You can get as hot, you can hit your apex of reach, and if he goes up correctly, you got no shots. Yeah,
because it's over you. And he's too damn good at what he does, and he works hard at it, and he shoots a billion shots. He's just one of those guys. He just loves to be in the gym. He's a gym rat and he loves to practice fifteen feet, fourteen feet, thirteen feet, seventeenth feet automatic. So I'm watching him at Texas and he's already a man. I'm on boys, and he's playing against some kids who are twenty years old, twenty one, twenty two, and I'm saying, wait a second,
this is this is going to revolution shots. So I start saying it on Cole Pizza. I'm on with Woody Page and Jay Crawford. They are laughing at me on the air, like stop it, it's way too soon. You're overreacting. Then we had Bill cellphone coach at Kansas obviously, and Jay Crawford our moderators interviewing him. It's not on with us,
it's just Jay and Bill. And Bill says, could I take a left turn here on paraphrase and I said it, but he said, I just wanted you to tell Skip he's right about Kevin Durant because we can't deal with him. Kansas couldn't deal with Kevin Durant. Okay, so he winds up in Seattle. But then, okay, I'm from Oklahoma City. So they he plays a year in Seattle, but they
wind up in Okay. See, I never in my life could have imagined my hometown would have any pro sport, especially an NBA team of magnitude, because they land in Oklahoma City and they got Katie and Russ and James. Are you kidding me? You have three Hall of Famers there and you got Surge.
I don't know.
It's like you got to deal with We had to deal with it. Okay, So right away what happens is little brother starts taking more shots than big brother. Russ starts taking more shots, and UCLA got your CLA guy. But I didn't see Russ coming at UCLA. Stayed for two years, and I watched him in the playoffs and the marsh Madness and finals, the NCAA Finals or the Final four, and I could I don't know if you did,
but I couldn't see it. Coming. I didn't see this coming, right, because go back and look at what is happening, Like six or seven points just coming off the bench. I could he didn't even catch my eye. Right, It's Kevin Love and Collison and you know, like it is a good team. Okay, So night after night I'm watching my Oklahoma City Thunder and Russell Westbrook is taking more shots. I just go back and show you the numbers. He's
taken more shots than Kevin Durant. I know Kevin's the most efficient scorer we've ever seen, but still I'm saying that's that's not right. And so I start to criticize Russ for taking more shots. This is now I'm on first take. And Kevin didn't lie because it was bad for their unity, for their their their camaraderie, for their chemistry, because.
Right, okay, it was bad for the team.
Okay, if Russ and Katie on the team, Katie should be taking more shots. That ain't no shot at Russ is just so.
Kat When when evening before a game, he calls over the reporter from the Oklahoma who covers the team, and he says, I got something for it, and he blasts me, and they put it in the Oklahoma and then I have to go on TV the next day and defend myself because Kevin said Skip doesn't no ship about basketball, and I'm like, yeah, I do. I actually do. And what I'm saying is completely true and fair. Kevin, I'm your I'm your biggest fan. How can you do this to me?
Well?
I didn't matter to Kevin, but Russ really really mattered to Kevin.
I want no division in the locker room.
Okay, So God bless him because you would have done that. You would have done that because in the end, all that matters is that basketball. And remember, Kevin chose to leave Russ. And I was told by somebody very close to Kevin Durant the main reason he left OKAC going into his tenth year. That was ten years. That's a long time he left because this was the quote I
was told. He finally decided he'd never win with Russ as his primary decision maker because Russ is dribbling the ball up to court, and it's like Rusk gets to choose every time, near you, near you, because Kevin's usually just over there like can I have it? No, I'm going solo. And sometimes he'd get to the rim and slam it and you say, my god, that was spectacular. And sometimes the ball is flying into the ninth row
and you're saying, poor Kevin Durant. And he finally said, you know what, you can shame me all you want to shame me. I'm going with those guys because I'm gonna go get me a ring. And did he not do that? Did he not rise and shine in two
straight finals and take the finals over? I loved it because they knew Steph and Clay and Draymond and Steve Kerr knew full well they were not going to beat Lebron and whoever was left with him we didn't know about Kyrie at that point, or Kevin loved but but there was no way that they were going to beat Lebron without Kevin. And Kevin tilted the playing field. Man. He just like like, now there, he's too good. It's
not that STEP's too good or play's too good. Kevin, that guy you you tried to guard and did a very You did the best job on him. Seriously, I've ever seen anybody do over what was it six games? Okay, because because he's just gonna wear you out mentally, and physically because you can give all you want, but that that's the best I've ever seen anybody do on him because nobody can deal with it.
Nobody.
I agree with you on on certain things too, about Lebron and clutch moments and the rust situation. But you know, I don't see I can see how some people take it personal.
Me.
I'm I think I'm Russ's biggest fan. I talk about Russ Moore than everybody. Yeah, and you know I'm how I'm brown too. But sometimes people got to understand not to twist where they easily twist your words, but if they just look at the play and talk about the game, A lot of things you're saying are true. Yeah, I think you say about them are true because when you're talking about the game, you're not making it personal. When it's about the game, you watch the game. A lot
of players feel the same way. We think Broun should take over some times in games, Like I remember one game he passed to Kyle Koba. He did for three you know what I'm saying, And I gotta thing like, you got to take that shot. It's not a personal shot at him, But me if I was on that team, I would have told him, bro, take that shot. I don't care if I'm open, you gotta take that shot.
That stuff you do be saying just for your for your side, I agree with because as a basketball player, you won't throw stars to make those plays.
Okay, do you have a photographic memory? You just fucking love it that much, you study it that much. You were getting the night Friday Night Game three. I'm just like clock you said, do you remember something like fuck, No, I don't remember. I mean, Jesus, I love it.
I mean, that's a happen question.
I mean, obviously, being in this space for such a long time, when did you realize that your words really started to carry weight? And it really kind of whether it was a positive or a negative, it really kind of had people talking at what point in your career.
I take what I do like crazy, Seriously, I'm obsessed with it to this moment, I'm more obsessed than ever, as I just demonstrated. But off camera, I don't think like that, like I'm important or my words carry weight. I don't know. It started in two thousand and four called Pizza, when I would be shocked when Bill self would take a detour on live National TV and say, hey, Skip was right about Kevin Durant. And I'm thinking Bill
self knew that I said that about it Kevin. That's interesting because I actually covered Bill when he was a coach at Illinois way back when. And I know him a little bit, but he's really good at what he does. I know they've had some issues and whatnot, but but
he's just really good. So if he said that he knows basketball, and he knows that I know basketball, so so that that had gravity to me, That that had foundation to me where I said, Okay, people are listening watching taking me more seriously than I take myself because I'm just spilling because I'm a fan. Nobody loves the game you played more than I do. Nobody trust me on this. I just spill it every night. I like to night. I already looked at the schedule. I'm gonna watch.
I like the thunder Way more than I like the Westbrook Durant Hard and thunder They were hard to love for me, just because Russ and then James and it was just different. Hey, this thing what they got going right now?
Hey?
H and if they got an unprotected pick next Clippers protected?
Yes, yes, they do, and I have been so hard over the last twenty years on white American centers being taken in the lottery. Anybody seven foot and above who's white and American. I can just show you chapter and verse. They're disasters. You know what they're You know why, because they're classic, they're classic stiffs. They're just all they got.
All they got is.
That they're seven foot one. That's all they got. But they can't play basketball. I can do a whole long listed, but the one I got I just did on my podcast this week. You remember Meyers Leonard? Okay, all right, so you cross his path? Okay you did, Yeah, okay. That was the one where I got in trouble at ESPN for saying on Draft Day, because the rumors were he was going to go late lottery. I said, no, bad idea, really bad idea, and I used on the
air because he's white America. Now is the eurocenters, you know, joker, And we can just go on back to Valancunos and all the way back to Sabonus's dad and all those. So the point is that the white American sinners have been disasters until I saw this video to what two years ago, this kid up in Minneapolis whose father played at Minnesota and was probably a white stiff at Minnesota. But this kid named Hongrid, he could jump, like quick jump, and he was long and like bean pole skinny, but
he could run. I mean he can run. And his shot is textbook pure stroke, like like pretty stroke, Like you couldn't teach your kid to shoot it much better than he strokes it from three and he shoots it like he means it with conviction. I'm saying, hey, that that kid can play. And the thunder wind up with him and listen, he's off to a ripple and start this year because he went to Joker on opening nine and busted his We did a number on with.
You know, I mean as great as Wimby is, And obviously we don't know the future, but we had a debate with Kendrick Parkins and can you possibly see Chet being just as good, if not better than Wemby And obviously they both have long, great careers, long to pointers.
But chat out played Wimby the other night and then Wimby plays at Utah last night and they haven't won a game and marking and didn't play and Wimby puts up fives where he's got five steels and five blocks. Well obviously, well I mean, and yet you know I'm gonna do this with you just real quick, because you know I've long been a Spurs fan back to George Gerbin because his finger rolls and all his magic at the basket. It just I was mesmerized by the iceman.
But I can't wrap my arms around Pop. I just can't. You had your issues. He's just like Belichick to me. With Brady, I think Pop was in large part a product of Tim Bleeping Duncan, because Timmy was such a great locker room leader like Brady was. That Pop could be old school tough, you know, hard ass and all that, like Belichick, but Tim would tell everybody it's cool, it's cool, just just just tune it out or whatever. We're gonna
win a whole bunch of games. And obviously Edmin and Tony, but once remember Pop used to say, when Timmy walks out that door, I will be right behind him. Well guess what, ladies and gentlemen. That was eight years ago, and Pop signed for another three years. Because that was bullshit, That's what that was. And people swallowed that bullshit from Pop, and ever since Timmy walked out that door, show me what Pop has done. Do you see the goat coach? Because I don't see it. And with Wimby last year,
he ran away with the blocks. Lead crushed chet and blocks last year and he was obviously by the end of the year, he was extraordinary. And they only won twenty two games, and they're not off to a great start this year. And you say Chess got a better team, Sure he does. I mean they're just loaded, They're like ten deep. But the Spurs have some talent on that team, and I don't see it reach any fruition. And I'm wondering how long is the honeymoon for Pop?
Well, right, what I will say about that is if you look at the coaching staff when I was there, with Mike Brown and coach Bud, they both went off to have great careers and great coaches in anybate to this day. Okay, So I would say Pop is not a great basketball coach. Good he's with you.
He's a great leader of men, all right.
Because for me, You're gonna take some heat for that shit, But that's fine, that's okay.
That's fine because because he had great coaches up under him. I think Papa is a great leader of men. You know what I'm saying, putting guys in the right position a perfect example.
I would say this.
If I didn't go to San Antonio or the beginning of my career, I wouldn't learn how to be a professional. I wouldn't learn how to be approciate that I want to learn how to prepare. And that's what Pop does. He brings He makes everybody buy into a championship idea, what should happen, what a championship, a team and organizations should look like. And he he brings the right pieces around. That's why he had Mike Brown is white had, but news his white had, PJ. Carlossimo, all these guys. He
even brought Sam Presty, and Sam Presty is doing it okay. See, So he's good at bringing the right people around there and leading men together.
To be you afraid of him.
Not at all. I'm not afraid of nothing. But God, I was not afraid of him.
Most guys are.
And I challenged him a lot. I challenged him a lot because a lot of the things he was doing. It wasn't because I wasn't a good basketball player. He was trying to He was trying to make me a mature man, right, being in games and mad because I didn't get the ball or something like that, and arguing with my teammate that wasn't that wasn't the winning way in San Antonio. So he was trying to raise me as a man. I didn't understand that at the time. I thought he was just being just picking on me.
But you fired back at him enough times he finally said that's enough.
I had enough.
Yeah, yeah, well, actually, you know, he didn't give me my big contract ifter.
Won the championship. That was his way of saying, I'm in control. You know what I'm saying.
So things like that that'll bother you with pop. But as a leader, I don't think you're gonna find a better leader.
I appreciate that.
R C.
Buford. You played around and under him as the GM of that team. Yep, I'm gonna remind everybody.
R C.
Buford did not play basketball. He was a walk on college football player at Oklahoma State, and he talked Larry Brown at Kansas into letting him be a Gopher on their basketball staff. I don't even know how that started, but it did, and that led to one thing after another, and he winds up in San Antonio and you can make a case he was the greatest builder of a dynasty we've ever seen. Because it's pretty easy to take Tim Duncan, but it wasn't easy to take Tony Parker
at the end of the first round. And it was definitely not easy to steal My Nugenobali at the bottom of the draft, right, And it was not easy to go steal Kawhi Leonard from Indiana for George Hill. Remember it was basically that was the trade. It was George Hill and the seventeenth pick, and you get Kawhi. Really, you got Kawhi Leonard. That's how you build a dynasty. So was Pop not blessed to have RC Buford?
Right?
Okay, so it all came together. But ever since Timmy walked out that door, I'm not seeing a whole lot from him. I'm not seeing special where There'll be a night I'll be watching Wemby and I'll say, you know what, they got something cooking here, you know, because strategically they know how to play defense or whatever. I don't see any defensive commitment and Wemby is still taking way too many threes. He's shooting twenty three percent from three and
he's got a beautiful stroke. But it's just like to say, work seven and four seven. I don't want him just standing out there all the time taking eight threes a game. He took thirteen last night at Utah and made four of them.
Way to go.
But what a lot of what populack Tim Duncan picked up on, like you said, yeah, you know what I'm saying. At a lot of stuff like they worked hand in hand, so you know he's It's definitely everybody knew it wasn't gonna be the same once Tim walked out that door.
We all knew that.
You were in that locker room with him. Was he not as as powerful a quiet force as there ever was?
By far? By far?
He ran He ran there say a whole lot you just knew, yep.
And he said that tone that you had, that he demanded that respect, you know what I mean. And I think that's why they had so much success, because if you got that respect at the top, it's gonna trinkle down and everybody's gonna buy in. I've been to a lot on his organizations where you never know who the owner is one and and everybody's not buying in. You got coaches with their own way of doing things. You got coaches talking behind each other back that don't happen
in San Antono. Everybody's buying in on the same page. That's done when you have that much success.
You said it, I didn't. You said not a great basketball coach.
Right, No, he's a great leader though, bringing but he's not a great basketball coach's leader because he might he comes from a military background, in my right or wrong, I've come from so that alone. Being able to put people in the right place and to lead guys in like that's not easy, as you think.
He's not ancent That's why he had.
But that's why you see the coaches that leave from him or email you dope. All these coaches that leave him become great coaches on their own because there were great coaches under him.
You know what I'm saying. He was just leading them and putting them in the right positions. It's a good quality to have. Absolutely, Yeah, he's a great leader.
Probably who was the strongest coach you played for, the most powerful force in the locker room? Somebody you really looked up.
To Bill Jackson really quiet though quietly. But I only got a year of him, and I got the end the end of his rule.
Which year was.
Ten or eleven eleven, where he had cancer and he was going to step away from the game. But the aura of his in his presence is strong.
You know what I mean.
And I came in the year they had just one tune we were going for a three p and that you know, hurt myself and towards the end of the playoffs. But the trust he instilled in you, if you put you out there, he trust you. He's not going to be a coach. I mean, we know he's not up there screaming and doing all kinds of ship. When he puts the guys out there, he trusts him and he allows you to play the mistakes and make mistakes.
He wants you to figure it out on the court, and he's not a time out.
Yeah.
Yeah, So I really, I really, you know, And I got a chance to play for you know, a lot of good coaches, but I think Phil is the one that jumps to the top as far as because I'm really mental too, you know, I love the mental side of it. Yeah, absolutely. When I tore my knee. He was calling me after the games like would you see out there? And I'm like, what the fuck?
Who was this again? Is my coachs?
Give me what I saw with Kobe and Big Drew and pas So, yeah, it was interesting.
Well, because he respected your acumen, you view your knowledge, your eyes. Yeah, So did you ever challenge him?
I didn't need.
There was there was no need to. All right, the interview, I'll just say no, I'll say the reason why I never there was. There was never need because the way he talked to Cod set the tone. He wasn't going for cod ship, and Cod wasn't going for his ship. But the fact that he could say that the Cod made everyone else just like, well shit, if he's gonna say that.
The cold with the fuck that we had.
Was king in a book before the before Yeah, but in person and way, him and Ronalds used to go at each other.
Oh my god, they were talking real ship.
Ron started talking about Phil's feet one time, how fucked up they were, and we lost.
Well two thousand and seven. What what did you see in Steven ad to give him a shot?
Okay, we go way back before that. Okay, first time I laid eyes on. Stephen A. Smith was at the United Center, the house that Michael built nineteen ninety eight. I'm at the Chicago Tribune covering the Bulls. Philly was in town. Steve and I was covering Larry Brown's team at that point, I think it was covering the sixers for the Philadelphia Choir. And he came in the media room before the game and he was suited and booted,
coat and tie. Sports writers didn't wear coats and ties, and I was impressed because he was trying to send a message. I'm legit. I take this very seriously. I'm here to do a job and I'm dressing appropriately. He later told me that Larry Brown was the one who suggested, well, why don't you do because I'm gonna wear a coat
and tie, you should wear one too. And Steve and I didn't have coats and ties, and Larry, I think, hooked him up at a mall, at a shop and a mall where he had some discount or something so that Steven A could go buy enough suits to last
through a road trip. So that impressed me. Then probably two thousand, we're here in La now, but there was a network pre fs one on that same Fox lot not too far from here called Fox Sports Net, and Jim Rome had an afternoon show, a TV show called The Last Word, and I don't know how this happened, but faithfully we got paired on a show with Jim as the wingman. So Jim would sit in the middle,
Steven over here, I'm over here. He would. Jim would throw up a topic and we'd start going at it, and right away I just liked him, and we clicked and connected off camera because he started to a respect me and be trust me in ways that me coming from Oklahoma City and him coming from Queens was a billion to one shot. But we just clicked and we were both We had newspaper hearts, sportswriter hearts, so we'd come from the same business, and he respected my ability
to write, and I definitely respected his bill report. And all of a sudden, Jim Rowl was saying, it's like watching a tennis match where he's just his head's just on a swivel, boom boom boom, and Steven A would let me go hard at him. And he's got a huge ego, bigger than my ego, which I love about him because that's who he is and what he is that makes him Stephen A. Smith. I love that he called himself Stephen A.
Smith.
That was just a cool name to me because Steve Smith, you know, it's not that great. We know some Steve Smith and it's okay, but but you're not going to be quite as big unless you're Steven A Smith.
Right.
Smart branding, It was brilliant branding. But I could go hard at him in ways that there's no way he's going to let anybody else go at him on camera on air because he knew in the end I still had his back, and we can go hard about a basketball topic because that was his forte. I'm football, basketball, whatever, but it's mostly basketball and it would be explosively great to watch. And we both knew it. And it wasn't like it was contrived.
It was real.
It was natural. We just naturally disagreed on just about everything. So Jim got a contract Snapfoo and left, and they wanted us to replace Jim with the show PTI had just launched. It was maybe three or four months old obviously on ESPN, so they wanted a PTI esque show with edge. That's how they proposed us with Edge and a producer is still a close friend of mine and Steve and A's name, John Johnston, came up with the
title sports in black and White. This is two thousand and two, so we're way ahead of our sort of time. And we did a pilot and we did sort of PTI ED two. Yeah, just the two of us going back and forth with a guest that we brought in just for the pilot, Raymond Sini, the boxer. George Green ran the network, came flying out of the control room when we finished and said I could put this on the air tonight. Okay, so we're starting to talk to John about moving to LA and we're going to launch this.
This is a long time ago. This is twenty two years ago, so this would have changed history and it ran up the flagpole to the top. And I'm not going to name names, but somebody way upstairs said no to Steven A because he was just too edgy for them at that point. And I'm like, he's not edgy, it's just he's a showman. He's people don't take it that seriously, that like they're not going to overreact to it, that they'll love it, because that's what you want, you
want this kind of edge. I'm edgier than he is to all the questions you asked me, because steven A doesn't take it quite as seriously as I do. But we're a great click. Okay, So I'm so we got left at the altar on that one. So when I got to ESPN Pizza, we started to overlap he was doing quite frankly. We're both based in New York, so we would be on each other's shows. And then his plug got pulled and then they took us up to
Bristol and rebranded us first take. We had about a three or four year run where steven A got pushed out the back door in Bristol. I mean, they did not renew him, and I don't know, you have to ask him the real backstory. But he came out here to Fox Sports Radio and he was here for two years. And you can ask my wife about this. He would call me every day and say can you get me back on the Worldwide Leader? And I would beat on
every door in that building. You can ask them all if I didn't just keep saying, what are we doing? This is ridiculous. He's gifted. He's a force. We got to get him back here, and finally, I think it took two years. They imposed their will on him, you know, because he was too full of himself, I guess, and made him sort of crawl back, if you will, and they let him ease back in on New York Radio
and writing for New York ESPN dot com. I was just ashamed of it, but I kept fighting because then I was going solo on first take with a rotation of guest debaters. We had all kinds of people coming in, Jamel Hill, Michael Smith and two live stews, and Chris Brusard was in the mix, and we had all kinds of different people coming in. And we had a run in the t Bow season, which was twenty eleven, where
we just were just rating through the roof. But at the end of that season, I told Jamie Horowitz, who was our showrunner, they would let us have Steven A once a week for one segment at the top of the second hour, and that was it, because he was still being punished or whatever. And I said, just get me him. The rotation's fine, and our ratings were great, but I need him daily where I could wake up thinking I got him, because that's where you don't lose any sleep because I got a new you know, a
new opponent so to speak. The next day, I wonder how he's going to be. I wonder what this is going to be. We got a whole new dynamic tomorrow, wonder how that's going to work. I wanted to be able to sleep peacefully because I had my man back. So to your question, that that's how we fought through that and finally got him back full time. And the rest is his year.
What year did you guys reconnect and finally back full time?
Twenty eleven he became at the very end. It was like we were. I went to the Super Bowl. It was the Brady It was in Indianapolis, the Brady Giant second Super Bowl. So it was right in that week. That was the first time he came back on full time and we launched, re relaunched.
Even I said this, Who knows why I'd be if SKIP didn't put me on first take.
I don't know. I just still I look back at that time, you push him out the back door. No, seriously, like it's it's the dumbest thing ESPN has ever done in the history of ESPN. I know some dumb things have happened. That was dumb.
They making up for it. Now they taking care of him now.
Okay, well good, he deserves it. He's worth every penny of.
Money. Right, he'll get it.
Good friend, What do you have to say about people feel like first take debate and hot take format was bad for sports media.
I don't have any respect for that. As stephen A would say, they can all kick rocks. Okay, so I know we spawned a million imitators, but I already explained to you what we had. You want to talk about rare chemistry. I can't make it up, coach it. I can't teach it. I can say thank you God for it. And that's all I can say, thank you God because
we connected and they all tried and failed whatever. Because if you don't know how to do it, or you don't have any rapport with your debate partner, it will flop miserably and it'll be hard to watch, and it will be contrived and tricked up, and you have to have natural disagreement or it won't work. Because I'm not sure stephen A really really disagreed with a lot of
what I said. He just it just pissed him off that I would saying, you know, we're just it would just as he would say, you get on my last nerve, you know, and I would get on his last nerve and we'd be off to the races. He as opposed to Shannon. It was very different than Shannon our chemistry because stephen A would always say you go first, you go first, because he wants to do this.
He would be character back.
And listen to me because he knows I'm going to prep harder than him. I got the photograph memory. So he's like, just spew, just go ahead and just just regurgitate all over the table, you know, just vomit everywhere, throw all your stuff out. And he would sit back, classically greatest gift of gab I ever experienced, arms folded and say wait a second, did you just say so and so and so and so? And I'd say, yeah, I did what of it?
And oh we go?
But he would pick a little like part C of my ABC argument and jump all over it. And the control room is saying, what the hell are they doing? Because we've left the topic way behind and we're going way over here and magic is happening. Okay, I can't. I can't teach your coach.
That you were able to catch lightning in a bottle twice? The magic ew and Shannon had How did how did that partnership beautiful come apart or come together?
On Undisputed? I needed a new partner, and faithfully and fortunately, near the end of my run with steven A, there was a week in which steven I had to go do something somewhere. He was always gallivant and all around the country doing whatever he did, being steven A Smith. And we tried Shannon Sharp, I think for three days, and I really liked him in a very different way than I loved steven A. But I liked our click and it was a whole different dynamic because he's out
a year mold. Obviously he's in the Hall of Fame. So now we had ex player. We didn't have journalist journalists. We have X player journalist. We both are fitness obsessed, so we had that in common, and he right away respected me because I'm like a workout addict. I just like it. I'm sorry, I apologize for it, but I'm crazed, but I just do it because I like it. And so to see, and he used to say to me, we're way more alike than people think, and I believe
that's true. I'm coming out here because Jamie Horowitz, do you guys know? Okay, So Jamie's here and they're struggling and they're going to try to relaunch this FS one and Jamie's point to me was, I just need you to come here or we're not gonna make it. And he had given me a start. Remember when we first went up to Bristol, when it was still kind of
cold pizza ish. We had four segments a show, but it was still that show they tried to launch in New York in two thousand and four, which was a bad idea, but it was the idea of kind of a GMA Good Morning America of sports, where it's loosely based on sports, but we'll have these four debate segments to spice it up and bring back the sports fans. And what we found and when we got to Bristol was the only thing that rated, and the whole show where we'd have four spikes of show, because that's all
anybody cared about was the debate. They didn't care about the pat segments and the ballpark food segments. And the cigar segments and all those segments. Nobody cared about that. Jamie was the one who took over a year before steven A joined full time. And Jamie said, how with all this, I'm gonna blow out what's left to cole Pizza and we're gonna go all debate for two It's a two hour show, obviously there, We're gonna go all
debate for two full hours. And a lot of people in the hallways stopped me and said, this is career suicide for you and for Jamie. It'll never work. And the rest is history. So Jamie then came round about he went to the Today Show, then he wound up here. So I felt like he gave me that show. He blew it out and sort of rebuilt it around me in the two hours of full time debate. So it was up to us to select should we do a
rotation like we did in the beginning. We thought about it, and I pushed hard for Shannon because he works hard, he prepares hard, and he shows up for work on time and love to compete with me. Well, I can't make that up. Maybe it's not as many magical is the steven A kind of chemistry. But from day one it flew and it took off. And to your point, I appreciate that I got blessed twice because we took off.
Yeah, I don't.
I mean, I don't know the numbers at the time would First Take and undisputed, But I would say from just a fan perspective, you guys were right there, if not above.
Like I said, I don't know the numbers.
But the chemistry you and Shannon had kind of overshadowed whatever stephen A was doing on ESPN.
I'll remind you when I left, First Take was still on ESPN two, which has maybe a fifth of the eyeballs that regular ESPN has, And as soon as we launched here took a month, they moved from it. They moved the show up to the big eyeballs to protect it because we were going to catch it and pass it.
Absolutely obviously great chemistry and Shannon had a great run. Any regrets on how that partnership ended. Yeah, for the show, and then he regrets on how the relationship ended.
And what did you think about the character, the Uncle Shay Shake character.
He didn't come on, He didn't come on the show doing that with the black and mind the do raging, hennisy and all that.
Stuff when he first started it.
Yeah, he didn't come on with that at first when he first got on the show. So when all that came about, what you think about that.
Too, Okay, it's better for you guys to respond to that than me. But I was still very close with steven A at that point. He did not love.
It, no, yeah, okay, and I defer to you nobody did.
But you know what you talk about branding, you talk about stephen A. Smith to be uncle was big for Uncle Shannon, and out of that which which he I think it went away.
I don't.
I don't remember him doing it much over the last couple of years. I don't think he ever did it. But whatever unk stayed, Shaya stayed, so it ended up being positive for him. It made me pretty uncomfortable from my seat. But look, yeah, you ask about regret, I just have one huge regret. We weren't nearly as close as steven A and I were close, but I just
wanted us to finish together on time. Because over the last year or so, I would watch what you guys have done here, I would watch what happens to me on Twitter now X. I would watch what happens to my videos and I'd say, the audience is starting to erode on lenear what they call linear TV shows. It's here. You guys were ahead of that curve and then right on time on that curve, and now I want to chase you guys. You know I want to do this
because I saw it for about a year. But I wanted Shannon and I because I saw his podcast was starting to take hold when he was at Fox. I wanted us to finish together. And I don't know, as God is my witness, I'm not exactly sure what happened upstairs, but it fell all apart and he got pushed out and I was blindsided and dumbfounded by that, and I don't like it to this day. And I'm not a regrets type. I don't look back and say, oh, if only,
But that was one where it was just wrong. I didn't That's not how I envisioned because our contracts were concurrent, so I knew when mine was up, I wanted to go my separate way, but I wanted us to end the way it should have ended, because man, we had seven really good years. We had on just pure ratings. We had about five through the roof years, and that
matters to me. You guys like like you guys, I don't know if you ever have any spats or anything, or you disagree on things or whatever, but your link for life.
Now their respect doesn't change though respect.
But you're linked for life because you've been in this foxhole together and you've had all kinds of guests on here and yet calmly here it's big and you will look back. I don't God only knows where it's going to take all of us in the next twenty years. But twenty years, if God is good and you're still moving, you'll look back if you're not doing this anymore, and you'll have a deep connection and a deep connection. Okay, That's how I feel about steven A and Shannon. We
went to I don't want to say war. We went to battle together every day. And listen, Shannon, you're showed up for work man. He he came. He's extremely competitive and I am crazy competitive, and so we went at it in different authentic ways than steven A and I did because steven A he takes it seriously. But their showmanship involved with steven A, that is fun to watch with Shannon, and I trust me, it got seriously you sat out there.
I've watched you prepare for a show Skip and my boy, say, you right there. It is intense watching skill prepared for a show, Like it's just as intense to get ready for a basketball game.
Bro, it's the super intense.
Well that's my basketball?
Was it? Thank you? Did it ever?
Because, like I said, sometimes you got into some heated debates with did it ever feel personal? Did you ever knalk away from the desk and like, damn that hurt a little bit? Or no?
Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have say.
I told him from day one. Yeah, I prep hard, I'm intense, I'm over intense, But as soon as that little red light goes off, I let it go. Man, and I never take it home. And if if you do, you tell me about it and let's sort it out. And we had some sit down so we would sort things out. But he knew early on I always had his back and that there's no need to do like I was say on first take, my slogan was no punch is pulled, but none thrown. You can't get to
the point where you want to throw. Come on, you you know, like then nobody wants to watch that, but they like genuine heat, and Shannon and I produced genuine heat, and I truly love him for that. Like those are magical moments to me where I look back. We got into one time about Tom Brady. I didn't even know where it went. It just flew off the handle. And we did have to have a sit down after that one,
and we hugged, you know, like it's it's okay. But I think back on yes, because I remember that one because because now we're getting to punch is thrown right, like okay, And by the way, if he threw one punch at me, that'd be the end of me. Yeah, okay. So I'm still not sure how it went there because
this stuff is so unscripted. You you're in the middle of it, like there's there's kind of a quasi plan, you know, we kind of know what the top the topical question is, but then it just goes off over here. You guys just riff off each other. I don't know, you can't half the stuff that's happened so far in the show. You couldn't have planned, right, because we're just vibing off each other and with Shannon. I'm vibing and it's going here, and you asked me, is it personal
between you and lebron or Westbrook? After a while, I'm thinking, is it personal between Shannon and Brady? Because he just hated Tom Brady to me and it got vitriolic, you know where it started to get nasty angry on the air, and I'm saying and I like, I don't know Bray, I never met him before, but he's really good, you know, like he was, he was really good at what he did. I think it drove Shann crazy. He's playing a position it's not even like a football position, like it's they
protect him. So so all these guys, they're playing football and you can really get hurt doing all these other things except kicker or punter. But all these guys are doing this and they're running into each other the way humans should never run into each other. And here's this guy called the quarterback and all the rules protect him. He can slide if he wants to, and nobody can
touch him. And Tom Brady's just standing back there patent football, just throwing deadly accurate passes and just surgically carving people up at won him seven Super Bowl. I think he should have won eight Super Bowls out of the tea. And he played in Shanon's in the Hall of Fame obviously, and I think there was some resentment of how can he be this great because he's not all that athletic and he can't run a lick, right, He can just speed read, process poison under fire. He took some shots.
He would get hit occasionally, but in the end, it's like Wayne Gretzky and hockey. He's just playing this game above everybody else, and it's all finesse, you know, he's he's just operating on a higher plane than all these hockey goons down here running into each other. So was Brady, Well, I'm defending Brady, and Shannon went crazy, and then at some point he's suggesting he's as good as Tom Brady, or was as good as Tom Brady. At that point still.
Was He did not say that. Huh. He did not say, well he did.
That's how I interpreted, Oh yeah, I would have been mad to put your glasses back on you say some shit like that.
Okay, I'm like Shannon, and I told him on the air, I said, this guy's in another echelon from everybody else who ever played, there's never been anything like this guy what he achieved.
And Shannon said, I'm in the hall. I said, I got it. And then he's really mad and he takes his class off. Okay, what are we gonna do? Fight? Because now you got me? You know, like, I can't win that one. But let's just cease and desist and let's go on to the next topic. Because that's what that's as close as we ever got to eruption explosions.
If you do an our cardio every day, you got you got good footwell you can move.
Shan hips bad.
He can't move. He just top heavy. But have you ever seen he just topped. He can't move, He just top head our cardio.
He can move. You can stick and move.
Okay, he couldn't catch me. I know he couldn't catch it, but that m F is strong.
Rip. He's a big, big.
Boy and works hard at being a big boy, and it's just hard to Okay, I can't compete with that. But it's funny. Right before we launched, he's would send me videos. He sent me a video of him and spin class. So he's on the bike just just killing it, you know, and just dripping, I mean like dripping wet, and caption is I'm gonna kick your ass like he's telling me, I'm going to kick your ass. And I showed my wife, Ernstine, I said, I do this every day.
What really, I'm not I'm not at all intimidated by that. So I laughed when I saw him. You're not gonna get me that way.
Get me on TV.
You got me. You can't give me that one.
There you go.
So I don't know I could. Maybe I could land a little jab.
Here or something. Don't let Jack get you.
Let's go back early bringing, early up bringing, Oklahoma City. Yeah, I'm my dad owned a ran a barbecue spot. Yep, you're a big barbecue guy. The Hickory House.
Never ate it after I was forced to all the way through high school, never touched it. After that. I had my feel and I can't even look at ribs anymore. And I got nothing against them, but I grew up on them, seriously grew up on them. I got forced to work in that little hole in the wall barbecue place on the south side of Oakland City, which is the wrong side of town. It's tough side every summer, every Christmas break, every spring break, no questions asked. I'm
working at the restaurant. I hated the restaurant. I have a brother two years younger who loved the restaurant, and he became a big chef in a restaurant tour in Chicago and won the James Beard Award for Best Restaurant in America and Best Chef in America Obama. It's his
favorite restaurant in Chicago called Topolobampo Room. So my brother literally ate it up being in the restaurant, and I despised it because I was sports obsessed, and nobody in my family liked sports, so they couldn't understand why I wanted to play football, basketball, baseball. And my father, who never liked me and was a hardcore alcoholic, said you're going to learn this so you'll have something to do
with your life. And so I'm forced to do crap I don't like, which is preparation work, cutting up green peppers to put in a potato salad, and then every lunch and dinner rush I had to clean off the tables.
Busboy.
It's some nasty business when you're cleaning up after people, because everybody smoked, so it's just smoking ashes and butts, and it's disgusting. And if you do that for a two hour lunch and then he says, take your lunch, you're not going to be real keen on eating anything, trust me, you know, especially barbecue. So after a while, and they did a good job, and they did. It would come and go. Sometimes we'd have a little money, and sometimes we'd be busted because that's the restaurant business.
But that was my life.
You still talking about your dad being an alcoholic, complicated relationship with your mother with any alcoholic, and you talk about that a little bit.
They both had alcohol issues very differently. My father was a functional alcoholic. He could wake up in the morning. I saw this every morning. He would march to the kitchen and he would pour himself a vodka and orange juice and just gulp it. And then when we were coming home, if I worked the lunch and dinner, I'd have to ride home with him. I had no choice. I don't know, you know, nobody wore seat belts. I
don't know how we made it. But functional alcoholic. He would also take always take a big cup, just a soft cup, fill it with half Coca Cola, and then we'd go to the car and he'd pull the vodka from under the seat and Phil, it is a big gold and he's drinking this via straw all the way home. And I'm not even thinking. I don't know enough to know you're driving drunk. But he seemed to be able to function. Mom slowly fell to the bottom of the bottle.
But she was a fall down drunk where when she got drunk, she got silly, sappy, lovy, crazy, can't function drunk. And so I'm the oldest and I'm dealing with two of them. He left when I was sixteen, ran off with the woman three doors down who is my mom's best friend. They eloped to Tulsa, up the road from Oklahoma City, and I was kind of left running the household. But it was just tough on me because I was the first coming.
Up in it.
You have to figure it out, you guys know what you have to figure it out. You have to figure you know, how do you do this? How do you survive? How do you do this? Because I got no guidance. The other the good part was I had no rules, I had no curfew, I had no guidance. I could do anything I wanted. And the weird part was when I turned fourteen, my mother made my father buy me a motorcycle. And they weren't expensive. It's a hon to ninety, their tiniest, like a sewing machine engine and it'd go
like forty miles an hour. But she just said, I don't want to take him anywhere anymore. He wants to go to all these practices and all this stuff. Just kidding, even just get him out of my hair, Just give him the motorcycle. So I go down on my fourteenth birthday. I aced the test, made a hundred on the written test, and he takes me right to the Honda shop and I'm off to the races. And it's December the fourth
and it's cold. I got a church league basketball game and I literally strapped onto the banana seat my back, my basketball bag and it's freezing cold, and I'm going to First Christian Church to the gym to play basketball. And I was free man. And so that was fun where I could do whatever I wanted. But the problem with it is you can't trust anybody at home. That's the problem.
Yeah, somewhat similar, I bring my parents were functioning drug addicts, and I saw a lot of abuse and violence and times where we had no money, and times we fell out we had a little bit of money.
What your dad do.
My dad was a butcher by day and sold drugs by night, and my mom was a stay at home mom.
That did he do well selling?
He did?
He did well enough to make ends me. I wouldn't say well, but well enough. But you know my mom that was I was born in the eighties. That was a cocaine phase and era and a lot of different things. So I just saw a lot at a young age. Where were you in I'm the oldest of three. Yeah, until three years ago I found out I have two older brothers.
Everybody in the eighties, everybody was doing nobody.
But I say all that to say, I mean, I read when I was going through your stuff that you know, and I was wondering if that was the reason you're tough upbringing? Was that the reason why you chose not to have children? But me, before you answered on the flip side, I think I saw a lot. My mom was super mom, and my dad and my relationship are great now. My mom passed in those seven and I felt like when I lost my mom, I gained the dad and now we're great and he's a great grandpa grand key.
He did start to keep it. It's in his DNA wrestler.
I never fucked with heavy drugs, but I saw that to say, like, I saw a lot of not what to do for my dad. My dad had Now that we're closer, and he told me his upbringing and I understand he didn't know how to love. Was no examples of loving. I wanted to beat the greatest father ever because I didn't feel like I had a dad there. Although he was there every single day, I just didn't feel like I had that connection with them.
What was your reason for choosing not to have children.
I didn't want to turn into him, and I was afraid I would because I got his genetics. And he tried rehab twice because he was a veteran of the Air Force, so he went to VA Hospital to meet with psychiatrists twice, and the first time female psychiatrists asked me as the oldest, do you drink alcohol? I was thirteen inch maybe no, no, because he had forced me to drink alcohol when I was like four five and six.
When they would throw parties at home for their little clique, and their party trick was to get their oldest son to come in and they would give them and give me hard something bourbon, you know, because it's just bitter. I mean, it's it's foul. It's like castor oil taste to me. So I would sip it and spit it out and they would all laugh. It didn't bother me at all, but it actually saved me because I'm thinking, I don't what do you want that for? You put
that in your mouth. That's disgusting. So she said to me that day, you're doubly predisposed. You've got double alcohol genes in you, alcoholic jeens, so you better be careful, you better not start. So you say, why do you do an hour of cardio? Because I've channeled all that today. Whatever that obsession, compulsory behavior, obsessive, compulsive, it all goes into this. So at least it's a positive addiction. Or I'm probably I could go right down your dad's path to my mom's path.
How instrumental.
As someone myself again, and we all probably had our own versions of childhood trauma. At my age of forty four, Now, you know, seek counseling, and my fiance is very instrumental on me kind of unpacking my childhood and learning how to not be a man because I feel like I've been a man for a long time.
Just deal with shit different.
Yeah, if you don't mind me asking how you know obviously instrumental.
Has your wife been in that process for you?
And do you seek outside help to kind of deal with some of the older shit or what is your way of kind of dealing with it?
Sometimes she says maybe you should, maybe you should. I don't. I feel like I'm good with it so that I've worked through it. I have to point this out and you guys can laugh at me if you want, But my saving grace in my life, what centered me and saved me, was a black woman named Katie Bell Henderson. And the reason I hate to bring it up is because you guys probably dismiss it as, oh, it's like
the help or it's plantation mentality. Trust me, wasn't. She worked for my grandmother, who was not a wealthy woman, but she traveled for her work. So Katie Bell ran her household for by day because she wasn't there a lot. So because my home life was such a wreck. I got left at my grandmother's a whole lot more than I wanted to get left at my grandmother's And because of that. Katie Bell Henderson a black woman born in near Birmingham, Alabama, but raised on the South side of Chicago.
So she was Chicago tough. She she wasn't deep South. She was she was more Chicago and you know Chicago, both of you do, okay. So she saw what was happening, and she was she was my mother, you know, she just took over and like five six, seven, eight, nine, ten, all in there in my formative form year right in there, it's Katie Bell taking over my life. She's my role model, she's my guidance counselor. And she was hard on me.
She was not afraid. It wasn't like she's playing like the old black lady, you know, like that's that's not how it was. She would treat me by the shoulders and shake me. She taught me the word hypocrite when I was seven years old, which I did not know. She said, you're being a hypocrite. Shake me.
No.
She would tell me the evils of alcohol. You can't start just look look, look what scorn was all.
Through my family.
I'm from extended family. Don't start just don't don't. And she taught me right and wrong, and I have good right and wrong in me. I have decent character. And it all came from that woman. I'm telling you, as God is my witness, I would not be the same. I would not be stable without what she brought into my life when it really mattered, and it also helped me. She had a granddaughter named Audrey who would come every summer and stay with her for three months of the
summer from Chicago. So I got left over there. And so now I'm six seven and eight and I'm making up games in the backyard with Audrey, my age from the South side of Chicago. You want to talk about education, because Oklahoma City was still segregated, but it's not deep South. It doesn't feel like like wrong band, you know, like it's that's not the sort of the mood of the city. And so for me, even though it was segregated, I got to interact with this black girl from from Chicago.
This is gold Man because I'm getting it, I'm feeling it. And the main thing Katie Bill taught me was we're all the same. We're pieces of God, every one of us. You're that callor you're that color, I'm this colle okay, pieces of God. And if he was okay, yeah, okay, okay, it's okay, yeah.
All right.
So the final piece to my puzzle was my wife, Earnsteine, sitting across from us. Five years ago. She had a what do you call him? A shaman mystic uh okay, named Joseph, a black man from New Orleans living in New York City that she had connected with, and he really enlightened her over the phone. He could see things in her life that that she was blown away by. So she said, just try it. I said, I don't buy it. I'm not I'm not there. She said, just just open your mind up a little bit. This isn't
like therapy. Just just see what he has to say about your life and times. Maybe he'll give you just a tidbit that that will really open you up somehow. So I get on with Joseph. I don't know, it's kind of awkward. How do we start?
What do we do?
He said, as well, tell me what you want to know from me? I said, really nothing. So we're just going back and forth and it's not it's not cool. And all of a sudden, Joseph says, and there's no way he could know any of this. He says, somebody wants to join us, and I'm like, stop, you know somebody wants to join us. And he said, yeah, it's a woman. And my first flash is it's my mom. If you're buying into this what we're doing, and I don't. I don't want to communicate with my mom.
I'm good.
I put that dressed into bed. God bless her, you know, like I made peace with that. I don't need to redo all that. And he says, it's a black woman. And I'm like what, because I you know, we lost Katy Bill when I was in college, so it's been a long time, you know since I really thought. I mean, she's in my heart, but I don't think about her on a daily basis. I said, Katie Bill. He says, yeah, Katie Bell. And she wants you to know how proud she is of you. That's the God's truth. She wants
you to know how proud she is of you. Well, I just I got tears in my eyes because of all the things that have ever happened in my whole life. Nothing from my father, my mother, even from Ernestine, my wife, nothing could mean as much as me being told whether you buy this or not, but but it rang true at the moment, she wants you to know how proud
she is of you. And I don't think Joseph could have had any idea because my wife barely knows about Katie Bell and all the details of it, so it's not like she could prep him tee him up for this.
That was the spirits, Yeah, it was.
It was spiritual. It came from somewhere else, so that when you say, do I need therapy? I got Katie Bell in my heart. And you can laugh if you want, but that's the God's truth.
Thank you for sharing, h I mean, obviously that was very personal. I appreciate you opening up and sharing that with us.
After college, you quickly became a star journalist Dallas Morning News columnists the twenty six years old.
What are your best memories of covering the game as a younger man.
I had so many good ones. I've been so blessed. Well, you and I share something, mister Jackson, A misguided love for the Dallas Cowboys.
Yes, and it's not misgott it.
You know, you know it's very misguid It's not misguided.
We want a championship more recent than y'all. But we've been there enough. We sniffed it. Y'all been there, but y'all lost. Y'all have we kind of losses?
Now? Are we doing that again? Yeah, we want a championship more recent than y'all. Fact of fiction, facts, but y'all still suck. But go ahead, skip. It's not about I don't like the facts though. They don't like the facts though.
Hey, I'm being interviewed here, Thank you, thank you. It was like a god thing. I wind up as the lead columnists of the Dallas Morning News right on time for what was actually the beginning of the end of the Landry Dynasty, and I got to live inside it. I got to know Roger Staubat really well. And those teams had huge star power, Tony dor Set, Charlie Waters and Cliff Harris. I don't know, if it goes back a little before your time, you're kind of being molded
as a cowboy, die hard. I went to my first game when I was ten. My uncle in Dallas took me to the Old Cotton Bowlt to see the Cowboys play a team that was my favorite team at the time because it was the only team we could get on television in Oklahoma City was the then Saint Louis Cardinals. They were a high flying, offensive juggernaut, and so I wanted to see them play this Cowboy expansion team. And of course I sit in my seat and within five
minutes I'm looking down at those stars. They had them on the helmet and on the shoulder pads, and I'm saying, love, I want me some of that, right, And then you're just you're lost.
You who's the first player you fell in love?
First Cowboy player that you attached the Cowboys today you fell in love with?
Mine? Was Bill Bates?
Really, Yes, I'm interesting. I knew him.
He was an animal.
Well, he's just crazy.
Flying down the field. Yeah, that was my guy. Bill Bates is my guy.
Okay, Well Starbach was my guy just because listen, I know he's before most of the times of the people who are watching our show right now, But Roger Stabach was it. He was beyond Aikman, beyond Don Meredith. He was the ultimate competitor. And speaking of basketball, later after he retired back in my twenties. I played with and against him a lot of basketball, and he was completely psycho as a basketball really like like crazy, competitive, was like scary crazy.
Like a good crazy. I don't know, he wasn't good, he was just.
I had a friend. You won't know this guy named pat too May. He's a great rid played for the Cowboys as a defensive end. He was really good. It's before your time, but he was. He was a good basketball player and he's six six. So we used to play Roger two on two with a guy from his work.
He just easing into his real estate career at that point, and one day we just beat the hell out of him because Patick comes set picks for me and Roger couldn't get to the pick because he's a mountain of a man, and I would just get off the pick and make shots. And it was driving Roger crazy. So he rescheduled another game against us and brought Cliff Harris. Do you remember Cliff Harris. It's again before your time, but he was Bill Bates before Bill Bates, and he
was certifiably crazy. They called him Crash because he had no scruples, you know, like he didn't care about his body. So Roger brought Cliff Harris to guard me, which is hitting a NAT with a sledgehammer, right, And that's what happened, you know. It was sledgehammer on NAT. But that was Roger because he's not going to lose to the sports writer, the sports car. He's just not going to do it. He's gonna take me. Cliff's gonna take me out, Okay,
So he he was. I was in awe of him, but I had the blessing of just getting to know him in those teams. So even before that, I was at the La Times out here right out of college, and I was in the middle of stuff right and left that The Steve Garvey Dodgers were huge at that point with Ron Say and David Lopes, and they didn't like Steve Garvey and they didn't like his wife. So I got that they came to me and wanted me
to write the story. So I was always in the middle of something like Controversy found me a lot in my writing career, and I don't know why, but I didn't run from it.
Attack m favorite team to cover, most favorite team to cover of.
All time, Yes, ninety eight Bulls. I mean last dance. I'm dancing, man, I'm there. Michael liked me, and he didn't like many in the media. But I don't know why. I think he liked me because I was my own guy and I didn't care what anybody thought. And he got a kick out of me, and and he opened to me and would call me if I left him
a message, he'd call me back. And listen that championship run with that team, watching that stuff unfold because they went against Reggie's Pacers, and it was a battle of royal man. It was seven games with controversy just spilling right and left because Phil would get into it with the referees and and it got that Reggie and company. They forced it all the way to game seven. Chris Mallen was on that team and the Davis's and yeah they were they were legit now and Reggie was obviously
a legit shooter. Score and they got it to game seven and then Michael said it no, not in my house. So that was the end of that. But that's my favorite team by far.
Which player was your best interview?
You know, I've been thinking about this because the World Series just ended. Reggie Jackson, do you know do you do you have a field.
I just got to to pat you off. I just got a chance to play in his celebrity softball game. It was the last game in the coliseum.
Wow at the baseball game he played? Yeah, yeah, did.
You incredible his energy or the passion he still speaks with like he was really cool game.
So let's go golf.
Yeah, really you should take him up.
Definitely, Definitely, he's done in county now really?
Wow? Yep, okay, so name he was coming off a game six at Yankee Stadium in which he had hit three straight runs on three straight pitches. Never see anything like that. They're in Fort Lauderdale for spring training. The LA Times assigned me to do a big sit down if I could get him to sit down. And I'm a nobody kid reporter on twenty four four probably and I caught him as he was entering on a Sunday morning before an afternoon game in Fort Lauderdown. You know
what it was in Baltimore? I mean it was Baltimore's in Miami because the baltim the Oriels were in Miami, so it was at their ballpark, the old Municipal State in Miami. Anyway, I caught him, introduced myself, and he couldn't have been nicer than me. And I don't know why, because he was big. He was because baseball was way bigger than it is now. So he was NFL, NBA stature. He was lift off. You know, he was the biggest name in sports because he was always into it with
Billy Martin. And he said, let's do this, and he sat down in his locker and I just caught him. You know how, we're all in moods, and I caught him in a good mood, and he just gushed to me and that man is brilliant about sports life, what's really happening. And I was just mesmerized, but I got law. I was just taking notes and I would get lost in what he was saying because it was so pure
to me and it was so enlightening. And then I would see him occasionally because I was in in Dallas and he would come to play the Rangers at Arlington Stadium and he would always remember my name, and so he's my that's my guy. We had him on Undisputed at least one time, and I'm in all of his presence, just his all. You can feel it, right, you want to talk about a powerful human being God to watch him swing and unleash.
The game we played in I think a Rod asked me a question of what he went through when he was playing. That went viral and broke down, really really broke down and broke it what he went through as a player.
Yeah, we played at some charity softball game in Alabama at the first ballpark what was it called Dammit Banham in Birmingham, Yeah, Burmah.
I watched it.
Yeah.
You had a quote saying I made some money on TV. Now it's time to make my mark. You've obviously transitioned off a very successful linear journalistic career. Yep, you're transferring over into this new form of sports media. I guess it is. It's the new wave. What do you expect? How you liking it? And have you kind of found your footing yet?
I am more excited than I've ever been because I'm challenged like I've never been. You guys know this landscape way better than I do. And I'm serious, I'm like chasing you guys now. But I needed this. I wanted this. I know I can do it. We're taking baby steps. We're developing three other shows than my current podcast, which is Solo Podcasts, never even had a guest on it. But but we've got three in the works and we're expanding and we're excited. So it's a brave, new world
and frontier again. I'm learning from you guys. I'm watching closely how you do it. It's been educational to see what scope you have here and how your crew operates, and how this show operates. I'm learning and I'm starting fresh, and I like it that I'm against all odds because that's when I'm at my best.
I like that.
Where do you think you know? I always feel like you know in this space, there's been a huge shift. Athletes voices are more present than ever. Where do you feel the ESPNS and Fox kind of sit in this new era where I always feel like they'll be there, but if they're not, necessarily you have to be there now to be heard or be seen. Where do you kind of feel like traditional or I hate to say old school, but almost old school ish media sits compared to this new wave of digital media.
I think you answered your question as you asked it, because you guys' voices are much more powerful, your platforms are more powerful and than they used to be. And it's everywhere because of digital so your voices can resonate and echo louder than they they used to. And it's a beautiful thing to watch. But is there still room for people who didn't play, who also have a different perspective on it? Sure there is, so do I think studio shows will go completely away? I hope not. I'm
knocking on would from our friends in the business. But this is the new way, and this is where you have to go if you're going to survive in this business.
Wow.
Just the other night we saw a huge meltdown by Dylan's Yankees in the fifth inning they gave the Dodgers six outset inning, and yeah, and gave them the World Series. Just thoughts on that series. I really thought Yankees had a sloppy season. I feel like, very talented, but I think they're you know, they're sloppiness up to But I really felt like there's a lot of great baseball in this actual World Series the world.
Yes, I haven't gotten over the fifth inning of what became a close out game that I did not see coming because it's five to nothing. Judge has found his stroke. He's escaped his slump. It looked like he was back. It looked like they were back. Stanton was back, Soto was back, and it felt like they were taking charge. And so I couldn't wait for We're taking the front. But what was going to be tonight a Friday night
game six? Because it was going to get really interesting, especially if somehow the Yankees could maintain the momentum and get it to a game seven, then we could talk all time classic. And it's five to nothing, and it felt like fifty to nothing to me because Garrett Cale
looked invincible to me. He looked untouchable to me, and he was so poised and so in command and control that I'm saying he might just go nine and just shut them out and do something that we hadn't seen since the days of my all time favorite baseball player Bob Gibson and my old Saint Louis Cardinals, who would just shut you out in two hours and two minutes and you'd beat the next game.
Right.
It's what we used to call a can of corn fly ball. It's as routine as it gets to Aaron Judge, and he just muffs it because he took his eye off it for a split second. But it's something little kids don't do when they're seven or eight years old. It's just you just can't do that at that moment.
But that now the floodgates still haven't opened yet. Then it's a pretty routine ground ball to Volpie and it's a pretty routine force out at third, and he just he gets a little too fine with it, just dirt balls, and it's it's like a ten foot throw. It felt like, you know, okay, but you're still you're still okay, and it's ground ball to first, and Garrett Cole just loses his mind for a second and he doesn't cover first.
And now the floodgates have opened because you've done the three things in one inning that I didn't think you were capable of doing one thing in one inning, and you've tripled it. You've gone triple jeopardy to the point that you could just see the body language of the Dodgers like, we're gonna give us this seriously, And the floodgates open into the Yankees credit. They fought back and took the lead again, but you just knew what was coming. That was coming, okay.
After every ear they made, I was telling Dylan, the baseball guys don't like this, Dylan, the baseball gods don't.
They just don't. Baseball godsill like hot topic.
Obviously, coming off what from the outside looking in was a very successful season for the WNBA, with the growth of the game and the young stars coming in the game. But when you look at the numbers, the league lost over forty million dollars. Do you see light at the end of the tunnel, and you, obviously because you were around, do you see any similarities to where the w is at this point and where the NBA was in their twenty seventh or twenty eighth year.
I'm trying to step back from it and comprehend what just happened to this league. I wasn't a big Caitlin Clark fan when she was at Iowa, though I got into it a little more in the final four, and certainly the final game, I found myself captivated watching her, and I don't obviously she brought a lot more white people back to watch the game, but it seemed to
all swirl around her whatever new popularity like. I'm not sure she saved it, but but she changed the game, and I still can't quite explain why, because I thought she was just a three point shooter and I didn't see this at Iowa. But but she's a lebron Asque passer of the basketball. Yes, okay, so I didn't see that coming. And she led the league by far and assists. But she shattered, I mean, like obliterated the all time turnover record and it wasn't She did it by like
seventy five turnovers. Because she will try anything at any moment, thread the needle where there's seventeen hands in between and you're not going to get the basketball through, and she tries to get it through. But every once in a while, she'll throw some lead pass like Wes Unseld used to. You know, Kevin loves good ad. But she'll throw some lead passes just it's a touchdown, you know, where she'll hit somebody right in the hands for a lamp. You say, pooh,
that's that's lebron ask. She has an effortless distance stroke the logo where was she jump shoots and a lot of the women before it weren't jumped their set shooters. They're like feet on the floor shooters. But she can actually leave her feet and hold the post and flick a wrist and get it that. As you guys know, it's a long easy man. It's not that easy to get the ball to the basket. And she'll make an occasional logo shot where I'll say, huh, that is obviously
Steph like. Yet she's not a very good consistent three point shooter because her percentage was like thirty three percent. It was way down the list of three point shooters. Plus she's high volume, low make. And yet she completely changed the way that team plays basketball. And I got addicted to watching that team, not just because of her, because all of them, because it worked. Now they've fired their coach because they are going to bring in a
better coach. They think they get the Connecticut coach.
I guess.
So my answer to all that, it's a great question. But all I know is I started watching because I was mesmerized by how great she was and how bad she was all at the same time, and it was captivating to my eyes. I don't know, so she became it. She's not very strong. She needs to get a lot stronger, and they're taking the ball away from her. But help me out. Would you watch her?
Yeah?
Absolutely, I'm really I enjoyed the W as a whole, and and we're working on kind of a little bit of a passion piece, kind of comparing where the W is now compared to the NBA was then, you know, and almost comparing, not because we still you have to see what these women are going to do, but kind of how Magic and Bird brought some life to the game. Caitlin and Angel brought some game life to the game. How there's a Juju and mj were coming down the
pipeline with new breath, frash air in the game. There's you know, there's a gainful of similarities to where they are and in their respective times. Yeah, quick hitters, man, this has been amazing. First thing to come to mind. Let us know your this is gonna get spicy. Top ten in NBA players of all time.
Of all time, all the time, she warned me. And I would have brought my list in my man Tyler's over here, maybe he could help me. Yeah, okay, so I think we all can agree on the number one name on that list, Jeffrey, Yes, thank you, Jeffrey. And I've got Magic too, And now I wish I had my list. I think I had Shack three kream four, Duncan five, Okay, Bill Russell, Kobe seventh, Larry eighth, and lebron Is ninth. Okay in Wilts, thank.
You, Tyler.
Any Larry Bird stories can you give us one? I'm a huge fan of Larry Bird.
Two quick ones. So I'm at the Final Four, nineteen seventy nine, Salt Lake City. Gil Brandt then the Cowboys GM would always run a hospitality suite for the college basketball coaches under the auspices of he's trying to find the next Steven Jackson who can be a tight end for him that can sort of transfer height speed over into football.
Allegedly.
I think he just wanted to be a powerbroker. But he would have all the best coaches come through the suite because they weren't all participating in the Final Four. So on Sunday, ahead of the Monday night game, which is going to be Bird Magic Indiana State Michigan State, I'm in the hospitality suite and Gil pulls me aside and he said, listen, I've talked to all the best coaches, Dean Smith, the Bobby Knights. They don't believe Larry Bird
can play at the next level. I said, seriously, because I hadn't been able to see I saw him in the semi final, but it wasn't enough. I think they played de Paul Mark acguire, who I got to know in Dallas, and he said, yeah, the quote I keep hearing is Larry Bird is too slow footed to make it in the NBA. So I wrote a piece for Monday Warnings, Dallas Morning News newspaper, in which I said that there are coaches here who don't believe Larry Bird
can play. I didn't say it, but I said there are those here, because I don't think he was making that up or exaggerating that they lose obviously to Magic and Gregory Kelser, who was that were just too good for what Larry had in the nited state. And uh, that was real, like really really wrong because he could really really play for a thousand other reasons than slow feed because anticipating steals, he got his hands on a lot of basketballs defensively where slow feet didn't really come
into play. And obviously he's shooting him back behind his head and it's like Kevin Durant, you just he's six y nine. You're not gonna be able to bother that shot a whole lot, and he was just deadly, especially when it mattered the most, and a great passer. So
I'm in Dallas at Reunion Arena. I don't know if you ever played at old reunions, probably before your time, but he came for to play and was at a shoot around, and I just went up to him and apologized to him, and said he didn't care who I was or what I was, but I just apologized to him.
So then we fast forward to the eighty six All Star Games played in Dallas, and it's the one in which he's in the three point contest where he shoots the last one and puts his finger up in the air while it's in the air, I got you, okay, And I'm told from a Mavericks insider who was in the locker room. I remember, this is nineteen eighty six. There's only one human who could get away with this. But do you know this story about what he said to his opponents?
I heard a little bit before it, okay.
So he walks into the locker room and it's only how many guys are in the three point eight and all the rest of them are not white, And Larry Bird says to them, this is what I was told, which one of you?
And you knows huh no, oh, word word theliest word in the history of the human language, abolished, is going is going to finish second?
Which one of you is going to finish seconds? They say, Okay, there's only one human and this is nineteen eighty six. Who could get away with that?
To me?
And it's that guy, That's what I was doing. But it's that guy. And they already knew what he was because he's winning championships and m vps. So I assume I think it's Craig Hodges was the best of his opponents, and they're probably just.
Like, damn you. Okay, fuck you too?
Ye?
Yeah, I mean to Bird's created. He used to get white, I mean get mad when white guy's gardener. They said that was the insult. Nobody can Okay.
Eight mile race, you broun tyreek Hill and Mookie Betts. Who wins? Who are the.
You bron bron you braun tyreek Hill and Mookie Betts hate.
That's a hell of a question my race. I'm going with you.
I think I might beat him by a mile.
Yeah, I'm going to skip.
Well, I mean, when have any of those humans the three miles. Okay, it's what I do every day. It wouldn't be fair. And it says nothing about me athletically whatsoever, except I'm in really good shape. Yeah yeah, but athletically it says zero. But they would have no chance. And if any of them, I would like to do it, if any of the if they're listening watching, now, let's go, I'll be there and bring your wallet hardly.
And Skip what makes Skip Bayless happy?
My wife does make me very happy, yes, I must admit. And my dog Hazel makes me very happy as she knows Maltese. As she ate now eight then she's ate. But those two keep me right. That they keep me upright. They they make me very happy. Tonight is date night and I'm looking forward to it. And I can say this about my wife, God's truth. Not once in my life with her, and we started in five, we got married in sixteen, but so five we're almost twenty years together.
There's never been one moment with her I've been bored, not one moment. I do play golf, but I don't play cards with the guys on Wednesday night. I don't go out with the guys on Friday night, I just want to be with her. I'm obsessed with what I do and it makes me very happy. Because it's Saturday.
Is fine, but I only look forward to the time with her because every second I have not doing this thing this microphone is dedicated to her and too Hazel, and so she does make me very happy, whether she believes it or not, and half the time she doesn't.
Again for day night, No Oaklhoma.
City's at Portland watching. We're going to watch the come on.
Top three Jordan's to wear. Oh god, you like the ones? Yeah, you'll be a big one guy.
You know what my top three?
We used to compare shoes when I was working with Well. I used to check his drip every day less.
I do like the Concords the elevens both high and lows, and so they would probably be high and low would be my second two because they're away beyond all the others that I.
Had quickly explain their relationship, like, well, between you and Lil Wayne and then you guys seem like you guys are really good friends.
Yeah, yeah, he loves Skipp. That's my boy.
You know that he loved our show. This is pri Stephen a and I think you helped get him to My wife helped book this, but somehow she connected with his people. And because he was playing a concert in Westchester County and outside of New York City, it was a fairly handy to hour bus ride. He was on his tour bus to come to Bristol, and he wanted to come to Bristol and be on first take. And he came to the pre show meeting which started at
seven thirty in the morning. I don't think he went to bed, no, right, nope, but they literally pulled their tour bus right up to the door and we start talking across the table about Steph Curry. And it was
before the Steph Blake draft. And everybody at ESPN loved Blake Griffin and I didn't because I'm an Oklahoma fan by birth, and so I'd watched Blake for two full years at Oklahoma and he could make a shot from like a foot away, seriously, but he was, as you know, extremely explosively athletic at whatever six ' ten, could jump you know, to the next county as an explosive dunker. But I don't know, I just didn't. I didn't love him. He reinvented himself as a three point shooter and extended
his career shooting threes. But I was in awe of little Steph at Davidson because I said, this is revolutionary, and I kept saying his handle is way better than people. He can play point guard because he's not a flashy passer, but he's a really good passer with a great handle, So forget just about the shooting. He can run the
basket all team. So Wayne is agreeing with me, and no one had agreed with me at ESPN, and we clicked over Steph at Davidson because it's before the draft, and we agreed we would both take Steph number one in the draft above Blake And when do you go seven in the draft? Like, come on?
Really?
Okay? So that started it, and then he took me after the show out to the tour bus where he has a recording studio. It's like a bathroom size studio on the bus.
Did you did you get a contact?
I don't. I don't do that.
Yeah.
Yeah, And so I'm pretty susceptible to contact. And I was feeling real good.
We could we could re enact that feelings.
I'm sure I should try that sometimes maybe that would would sort of calm me down. But the point is then we just clicked. I don't know, but it's pure sports you want to talk about, coming from opposite ends of the earth. So it was that when he moved out here four years ago, my wife and I would go visit him. I don't know, every couple of months. We'd drive out to hidden hills out in the valley. And I know people won't believe this, but we would
sit and talk, the three of us. He would include her because he does love her and has like a big sister, and we would just talk about not about sports because she's not the biggest sports fan. We would just talk life stuff, show stuff, I don't know, music stuff,
behind the scenes stuff, a little sports. She says that it would work its way in, but but we would talk for four straight hours with no bathroom breaks, no food, and no drink but occasional puffs, you know, right, yeah, okay, so but that's but we would sit outside because Ernestine doesn't deal great with the smoke. We just sit out on the back. Poorchold. You just talk, okay, So that's how it, that's how it happens.
And whatever. People don't know wherever Wayne is.
He's in the studio nominally from like eight in the evening to like nine in the morning. Normally, whatever he is basketball sports is on every TV. There's no TV, no shows, and sports on every whatever game is on ESPN, Like that's all he watched all night long.
That's that's why he knows so much about sports.
He is obsessed and also brilliant, like deep brilliant. My favorite communication with him is text because we kind of play can you top this when we're going back and forth, and I would look at the text chains and I would say this, this, this could be a book. He knows what he's talking about. And it's like deep passionate deep passion of what makes somebody tick tick, you know, like what's really happening with so and so so.
He didn't see it a lot covered Mike Tyson in his prime. Yeah, thoughts on the upcoming fight with him and Paul at Jerry's World where Jerry, Okay, you're welcome.
I'll be there.
No, I know, I told you he was coming because any otherwise you can come down there, you eed the j Macney I can come. I called it, like Jerry, I'm bringing some party niners fans from Kelly.
They cool.
He was like, yeah, they're cool because it's a boxing match. But if it was a game, y'all couldn't come in.
Okay, cool, exactly, skip the call in too.
The closer we get, the more fascinated I get by it, because at first I scoffed like everybody else did, and then I start to think, that guy, there's some special guys, you know, who are just special, special whatever they're made of. Obviously, Mike didn't take care of himself when it was time to take care of or he could have done whatever he wanted to do. But when he was right, he was the baddest on the planet and arguably the baddest who ever walked, ever walked. And whatever that quality is
is still percolating inside there. Yes, and he looks like he's in pretty good shape, because I'm in really good shape. And so I look at it and I say, he's fifty eight. Okay, okay. So at first I thought, there's no way he can beat this kid, because this kid's pretty athletic in his decent behind he does. Then I start watching it. I don't know what Jake's doing, but but he looked like he put on a little weight to me, just to just paunchy, excess weight that he
does not need. And I start thinking, is Jake really taking this as seriously as you better take that? I hope he is. Or I know they're wearing big old pillowcase gloves, you know, like pillows. But still Mike could hurt him. If if Mike goes like Haywire screwy, you know, like where he calls upon that thing that's it's locked deep down side, then he could do some damage.
But that's why I feel scared for Jake, because the best boxes are the ones that can inflict pain but also mentally in control. The best one was Floyd Terrence carp for those type of guys. So Mike is more peace than he's ever been. That's what's scary. That he's going He's not showing up to the fight. I want to eat your kids. He showed up with how Jake did. That's what's scary. So if you think Mike not showing up going crazy, it's more frightened than the calm Mike.
You better think that. It's another thing you need to look at it. Bout boxing.
Roy told us he wasn't. Mike was supposed to. They were supposed kind of supposed to.
Chill. I saw Mike, he had movement, his powers is still there.
No, he can't help. At first I thought Mike wasn't taking this very seriously. And then Jake started to insult in like personal shot, insulting. And after a while you could see Mike's eyes and and they're going crazy eyes like like good crazy.
Like Mike had time to get his health right, like you want to play Jay, Okay, give me some time to get my health right.
Now, I'm going to come knock your ass out. Shall see what should see? If you could see one guest on All the Smoke, who would it be? But you have to help us get your answer on the show?
Donald Trump?
Oh nice? I like that. Nice. I would definitely sit down with Nice.
I can't help, but yes, yeah.
That's that's a good one. I like that. A lot of people want to see that. I would like. Well, Skip Man, thank you very much.
And before we get at it, I just want to think, Like I said, I've always had a lot of respect and been a big fan and and in this process of finding out.
We were going to get a chance to interview.
I got to dig deep and and do my research and kind of find out what you're about and who you're about, and and and hear you out, and it just made me.
More of a fan of what you do.
It was honored to get a chance to work with you early on and definitely looking forward to seeing what you do in this next step. As hard as you work, I know you'll be successful.
Man.
So we just really want to on behalf of both of us extend our you know, our biggest gratity.
And appreciation for opening that door. You know it undisputed for us too. That was big, but both thanks appreciate that.
All that means a lot. I love both of you. She knows this, My wife knows this because of how you fought, because you're both your own men, and you believe so passionately and deeply in what was down inside of you that you fought back and you have true edge to both of you why this is exactly working now. I have deep edge in me because by nature, if you know me at heart, I'm a fighter, I'm a competitor, and I have kindred spirit to what you're achieving on this show. So God bless both.
Thank you.
I remember reading you stop fighting high school though, that's when you give it up, skip you the scrap I was reading that.
I read about you the fift broken nose and two black guys still went to school the next day.
Took one shot yea from Jamie Staley in fifth grade. I took one and my nose was flatten.
I did remember his name.
He wrote about that's how I do about it. I read that pieces like I love that gifts like in high school.
I said, yeah, but it was a sucker punch.
Oh yeah.
Before we get out of here, we're gonna hey, thank you.
We've launched the fight side of our company.
So we got some all the smoke, fight some all the smoke, a shirt there looking over and then we're, you know, most proud of you know, we've we've teamed up with Simon and Schuster to do our first ever podcast, first podcast ever, Soldier boy can't.
Say that you ain't off the table books.
So again, in honor of just your greatness and and taking the time with us, we want to make sure we get all this to you and thank you for being on.
The show today.
Ship thank you, yeah, give it up, Skip, thank you.
Hey man, now where can you catch this episode? Yeah? Man, that's a rap.
Amazing at a great time today, sitting down with with Skip. But you can catch this on all the Smoke Productions YouTube and the DraftKings Network.
We'll see y'all next week. See y'all next week. M h.
Mm hmmmm mm hmm.