Shaquille O’Neal is known to host just about anyone on his podcast, not just athletes. However, not sharing a background does not mean he can’t make a connection to sports in his shows, no matter who his guest is. The Hall of Famer recently hosted comedian Karlous Miller. Shaq’s cohost Adam Lefkoe asked Miller to remember a time when sports made him mad on The Big Podcast with Shaq.
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Miller sat with the question for a bit before revealing that he doesn’t usually get mad at sports. In fact, he finds the action hilarious at times, stressing that isn’t too invested when they’re on. The 42-year-old shared that the passionate fan doesn’t see the same side of sports that someone who works in the entertainment industry does.
Miller explained that while fans see opponents as people who hate each other, events following the game prove that isn’t the case. He shared how oftentimes both teams are seen together at the afterparty, which took away Miller’s belief that teams truly had disdain for each other.
“Fans see this as like a blood sport. But they don’t even see the part like after the game, it’s the afterparty, it’s both teams in here and they kickin’ it,” Miller said. “They the ones who make the rivalries, so once I saw that I was like ‘Oh, they buddies.'”
That discussion prompted Shaq to talk about the time he hosted a WWE party at his Orlando mansion. “So Hulk Hogan came in, a couple other guys came in, uh, Ric Flair… and Macho Man and all these [wrestlers] start eating my hors d’oeuvres and talking with each other,” the four-time champion shared.
“Growing up, I always thought they hated each other… It actually was a sad day for me,” O’Neal continued. After watching the show these wrestling legends used to put on in the ring, it was clearly disappointing for Shaq to see their rivalries were mostly fabricated.
Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair’s rivalry was a clash of wrestling icons—Hogan, the World Wrestling Federation’s larger-than-life “hero”, vs. Flair, the NWA/WCW’s slick, skeevy “Nature Boy.” Though teased in WWF in 1991, their dream match never headlined WrestleMania. The feud peaked in World Championship Wrestling starting in 1994, with Hogan defeating Flair.
Their rivalry represented a battle of eras, styles, and legacies, so seeing the two engaged in comradery shattered O’Neal’s reality. He called it a sad day for the fan in him. The same can be said of many rivalries in today’s NBA, as the players have proven publicly that most view each other as friends off the court.
That wasn’t the case while O’Neal was playing or in the decades before. The NBA used to be known for its heated, hateful rivalries. Opponents genuinely did not like each other, so seeing that wasn’t actually the case for something he grew up watching was unsurprisingly a heartbreaking experience for Shaq.
