Dwight Howard and Shaquille O’Neal’s petty squabbles over the ‘Superman’ moniker have been going on for way too long. It initially began in 2008 after the 3x DPOY sported an impromptu costume of the hero during the Slam Dunk Contest, and has since devolved into the two legendary centers sending jabs at each other through social media. After Shaq’s “bus rider“ comments about Dwight’s role on the 2020 Lakers team, Howard took to his own podcast to respond.
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Dwight had actor O’Shea Jackson Jr. on his podcast, and Shaq’s comments about Dwight came after Jackson had appeared on his podcast too. It all stemmed from the LA native lamenting the way the Lakers front office blew up the 2020 championship team, not even giving them a chance to have a shot at winning back-to-back titles.
He listed off names that the team traded away, including Dwight and JaVale McGee, two players that Shaq has had beef with in the past. While the Hall of Famer acknowledged McGee’s growth and importance to that 2020 title-winning team, he refused to extend the same courtesy to Howard, calling him a “bus rider” in his rant.
Of course, Howard was not going to let that slide. In a clip montage before his podcast episode, Dwight took another jab at O’Neal, adding in every time the 7-footer referred to himself as Superman. At the end of the montage, D12 claims he didn’t need to ask for O’Neal’s permission to be referred to as Superman, as it was Warner Brothers who owned the rights to the name. He said,
“I wasn’t trying to be Superman because of him! N****a called me Superman because I jumped over my teammate in practice. But why do I have to ask him not Warner Brothers? They own the f***ing rights to Superman, not Shaq!”
While the two centers’ beef started because of the Superman nickname, it has since deepened into a seemingly pettier feud, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to come to an end soon. However, Shaq seemed to relinquish his claim to the nickname after Howard offered to fight him in order to decide who was ‘Superman’ once and for all.
He tweeted at Shaq after the Jake Paul v Mike Tyson fight, asking him to step into the ring so the two could squash their beef. A friendly enough invitation right? Well, Shaq didn’t seem to think so, and his response reflected that.
“Gotta have more than one ring to get in the ring with me, I’ll stick with a real champion like @RobGronkowski, and you can have the Superman belt, all yours buddy.”
The exchange escalated further during Tuesday’s Inside the NBA on TNT, where O’Neal addressed the challenge again, saying, “I only fight people in the Top 75.” His comment referenced the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team, from which Howard was notably absent.
Since that exchange, the two have gone back to snide jabs on social media, so it does look like all this is just smoke, and the ‘Superman Title Fight’ is never going to happen.
