“Shaquille O’Neal really put a knocked out Charles Barkley on his T-shirt”: Lakers legend emulates Muhammed Ali by poking fun at the NBAonTNT host

Shaquille O’Neal shows up to an event wearing a T-shirt with a caricature of both him and Charles Barkley, illustrating Shaq knocking Chuck out. 

Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley have been at odds with one another for well over 2 decades now, both on NBA hardwood and off the court by co-hosting NBAonTNT. 1994 saw Shaq elbow Charles in the face as the Magic faced off against the Suns and half a decade later, the two wrestled into the courtside seats. 

The latter of those events hilariously led to Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley’s mothers (who have been friends with one another for 30 years) calling the NBA legends to let them know that they had to patch things up with each other.

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Fast-forward to the 2010s and beyond and Shaq is continually at Chuck’s throat and vice versa. It’s either the Lakers legend letting the former Rocket know he has no rings or the latter repeatedly saying his 7-foot co-host knows nothing about basketball. 

Shaquille O’Neal taunts Charles Barkley with a hilarious t-shirt. 

An episode of NBAonTNT hilariously featured Shaquille O’Neal getting into it with Charles Barkley inside of a wrestling ring with WWE legend, Chris Jericho, in attendance. As expected, both Ernie and Kenny were well away from the two NBA giants. 

In honor of that exchange taking place, Shaquille O’Neal has made a t-shirt that has caricatures of all four NBAonTNT hosts, ‘replicating’ the aforementioned event that took place. Just as how Muhammed Ali stood tall over Sonny Liston, ‘The Big Aristotle’ placed himself in Ali’s shoes and stood over Barkley.

 

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Though this is indeed paying homage to that edition of Inside the NBA, it’s hard not to think about how this tee relates to the various times that Shaq and Chuck have gotten into it while playing in the league. It doesn’t seem as though the former Magic center is hinting towards those events however.