Here we go again. The battle between the television sports analysts has renewed as Charles Barkley and Skip Bayless are throwing barbs at each other again. The first strike was Sir Charles, who couldn’t resist taking a swipe at Bayless in the wake of his former co-host Shannon Sharpe’s departure.
During “The Match,” Barkley gave some commentary where reigning Super Bowl champions Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce defeated former NBA champions Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson on Thursday.
Snipering Skip
“Now I want to be like Shannon Sharpe. I want one of those jobs were I can get a buyout working with an idiot. You think I can get a buyout from working with Shaq? If they can get a buyout for working with a damn idiot, I want one of those too.”
When his fellow commentator said, “Shaq is taking that personal,” Chuck quickly let his NBA on TNT partner know, “No, no, not you.”
Bayless must have heard Barkley’s shot at him and sent some petty fire back to him on Friday via a tweet.
“Still chuckling over a clown calling me an idiot,” Bayless posted with a clear, direct shot calling Barkley a “clown” with “chuckling.”
The two have been at odds for years, with Barkley famously saying he would “kill” Bayless “live on national television” in 2017 on “The Dan Patrick Show.”
“You know what we should do for ratings?” Barkley said, “If I get a disease and I’m gonna die, how about you get Skip Bayless in here and I’ll kill him live on national television.”
“I like it,” said Patrick. “Like pay-per-view.”
“No, no, no,” Barkley clarified. “Just get him in here. Only when I know I’mma die ’cause I just want to get Skip Bayless in a room one time and beat him like a dog.”
“Only if I knew I was gonna die. Not if I’m gonna live, cause I don’t wanna go to prison. ‘Cause like Mahorn say, ‘they would love you in prison,'” Barkley added.
Analyst Wars
On a recent episode of the “Skip Bayless Show,” he spoke about Barkley’s “threat.”
“Charles has been taking shots at me for, seriously, 20 years,” Bayless said. “I never care about anybody taking shots at me, unless that somebody repeatedly says on national TV he would like to kill me. This coming from Barkley, just completely unprovoked. I have never criticized Charles Barkley one time, I have never said anything personally about him.”
While appearing on the “All The Smoke” podcast, Charles Barkley clarified why he hates Bayless and his harshly criticizing professional athletes.
“I don’t like the guy because television is a very powerful weapon,” said Barkley. “Everybody watches television, and I don’t mind you criticizing guys, but it can never be too personal. You can’t talk about people like that because you have to be fair and honest with people.”
“You can tell whom he likes; you can tell whom he dislikes because he makes it personal,” Barkley continued. “You can’t say bad stuff about LeBron James. Skip’s disrespect towards him, I don’t like it. He’s been rewarded so much with the way he’s made his money and made his living. I have a problem with it.”
One thing is for sure, the war of words between the two sports analysts will probably never die.
