Amid Ongoing Beef, Shaquille O’Neal Highlights Charles Barkley’s Take on Him Being a Bully and Talking Down to Others

Shaquille O’Neal joined the Inside the NBA crew in 2011 and since then, his banter with Charles Barkley has been the show’s highlight. One of the tropes in Shaq’s verbal exchanges with Barkley has been the 4x champion talking down to the ringless 1993 MVP. Thus, Barkley has repeatedly accused Shaq of being sensitive and bringing out his intimidation tactics during slight disagreements.

In the same vein, the Round Mound of Rebound labeled Shaq as a bully during his 2018 appearance on Jimmy Fallon. He repeatedly likened the big fella to the fictional ogre Shrek and claimed that 7’1” O’Neal uses his size to dominate people during regular basketball conversations. 

“He’s [Shaq is] a bully. He thinks cause he’s big, he is a big Shrek lookalike. He thinks he’s so big he can just talk down to people. We try to have a simple basketball conversation and then like, ‘You ain’t won no championships!’ Like, we can still have a basketball conversation, Shrek,” Barkley hilariously told Jimmy Fallon.

 

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Shaquille O’Neal shared an Instagram story that featured Barkley’s humorous description of the Big Aristotle. In his customary fashion, O’Neal didn’t add any text to his story, and for a change, he let Chuck run his mouth.

Shaq shares Chuck's opinion of him on his own IG pic.twitter.com/a9Uvf3ONx6

— tragicpatek (@tragicpatek) May 13, 2024

While Barkley knows how to get on Shaq’s nerves better than anyone, O’Neal can be brutal in the face of lightweight criticism outside of his workspace. The timing of this IG story is interesting, considering that the Diesel is embroiled in a ‘beef’ with Shannon Sharpe. 

Shaq picks up a random beef with Shannon Sharpe

During Nikola Jokic’s interview with the Inside the NBA crew, Shaquille O’Neal didn’t hold back and told the Joker that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander deserved the MVP over him. Fans accused O’Neal of being petty for downplaying Jokic’s contributions to his face right after he had nabbed his third MVP.

Meanwhile, ESPN analyst Shannon Sharpe opined that Jokic’s accomplishment makes Shaq “a little envious” because he has just one MVP award.

The 2000 MVP had a scathing response to this stipulation by the Broncos legend. He declared that Sharpe is ranked #51 in NFL All-Time 100, and hence, he has no right to lecture an all-time great NBA athlete. The Diesel even dropped a diss track at the expense of Sharpe, where he claimed that the NFL legend is “beneath him”.

This behavior is certainly in line with Barkley’s comments about his colleague being a bully. O’Neal’s hyper-sensitive ways seem to emerge from the insecurities pointed out by Sharpe. However, it also proves that the 3x NBA Finals MVP doesn’t tolerate even the mildest disrespect towards him from a peer in the sports media landscape.