Veteran Tight End and 3x Super Bowl champion Shannon Sharpe, who left ‘The Undisputed’ just a little while back after taking the show to great heights, recently told another renowned broadcaster Stephen A Smith what prompted him to part ways with his old partner, the notorious Skip Bayless.
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During an appearance on Stephen A. Smith’s podcast, Shannon claimed that Skip kept taking personal shots at him during the show which didn’t go down well with him. Shannon claimed that all hell would have broken loose if he had also decided to get personal with Skip, but he decided not to take that road.
Shannon Sharpe Reflects on His Exit from ‘The Undisputed’
Shannon Sharpe’s exit from FS1’s Undisputed was initially mysterious. Sharpe had remained silent on the matter while speculations arose about the significant tussle between him and Skip Bayless after a heated debate about Tom Brady. Bayless being Bayless, had taken a personal dig at Sharpe’s NFL career.
Skip emphasized Brady’s longevity compared to Sharpe’s retirement at 35, to which the former TE had responded by calling out Bayless for disrespecting him. Talking about the whole fiasco on The Stephen A. Smith Show, Shanon recently said, “A lot of that is my fault. Because there were times that led up to that, that I felt shots were taken, and I let it go.”
“I should’ve said something then, but I didn’t. And I would bring it to people’s attention, and they brushed it up under the rug. So that was my fault that it got to that point, and he felt that he could go over the top in that situation,” Shannon added.
Sharpe continued emotionally as he spoke out about how “in any relationship where there’s a host, co-host, once one partner has no respect for the other, the other partner then in turn loses respect for said partner. Then, I think it’s only a matter of time. Because, in that moment, I had felt he had lost all respect for me. He had no respect for me. This is Undisputed. Skip and Shannon, this is not yours. So it really, really hurt me. Had I attacked him personally, live on television, what would have happened?” Clearly, for Sharpe, the lack of respect from Skip was the most critical reason for his exit from the hit show.
Shannon Sharpe Was Left Disheartened by Skip’s Personal Shots
During the same episode of the Stephen A Smith podcast, the 8X Pro Bowler, when asked about the ‘Skip-Shannon relationship”, expressed how he knew that it was only a matter of time before the two analysts go separate ways as they seldom used to talk off camera.
“I knew it was going to end because he had started coming with greater, greater regularity, the disrespect. “You can say I’m loud, you can say I’m obnoxious, you can say I’m arrogant. But to try to poo-poo my career, a seventh-rounder that started out on special teams and played so well that I got into the Hall of Fame. To try to minimize that was disheartening for me… I considered Skip a friend. For you to take that kind of personal shot at me, it really hurt me, Stephen A. It really did.”
All in all, what’s interesting to note is how Sharpe answered back to his fellow haters who raised finger at him when he decided to leave the Undisputed. Moreover, lately, Shannon and Smith’s First Take has been crushing Undisputed’s viewership, with First Take averaging 626,000 viewers on the first Monday after NFL season per Awful Announcing. While unfortunately for Skip, he only drew 185,000 viewers that day. Looks like the Skip-Shannon breakup is hurting Skip the most at the moment.
