Former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant wants to fight ESPN talking head Stephen A. Smith and Barstool CEO Dave Portnoy.
Bryant apparently has an issue with how the two men have talked about him and made his thoughts clear on X. This is where sports media has evolved, to and if we’re not careful it will get worse.
“I really wanna get in a boxing ring with @stephenasmith and @stoolpresidente. Folks like them talk the way they do because they know they can’t get touched. But I wish they would agree to get in the ring with me so I can unleash my frustration against them. I can beat the sh-t outta them without going to jail. I need that blessing,” said Bryant on his X account in a now deleted post.
Smith Says He Has No Problem With Dez
Naturally, Smith responded on his eponymous show.
“Dez, I’m sad that you sent that tweet, my brother. For the record, to the audience out there, I’ve never had a problem with Dez Bryant, not one time. I love the X. I used to troll them when they were Cowboy fans but I never had an issue with Dez.”
The problem is this type of adversarial relationship with “media” and athletes has been celebrated, encouraged and promoted.
Since the explosion of social media, early blogs, and the need for virality it has created the perfect storm for this environment of negativity. Conflict sells. It’s why we watch sports. One team against another or one individual against another. That feeds a certain part of our brains and nervous systems.
In today’s world anyone can say anything about anyone else and there is a chance that it goes viral. Once that happens you either add fuel to the fire or you wait until it dies out and the next incident takes over the cycle.
It’s annoying, repetitive and a real disservice to all parties involved. But these things wouldn’t happen if there wasn’t an audience for it. A lot of people enjoy this type of content.
Too Far Down This Road
Media exists to report on sports and give fans insight into what they don’t have access to. But with athletes being all over social media and on their own platforms, many media companies have pivoted to this type of content, and as a business model it works.
As Smith said he’s never had a problem with Bryan,t and maybe he’s right. But maybe Smith said something many years back about Bryant that the former All-Pro filed away. As for Barstool and Portnoy, they say all sorts of wild things.
Braynt has since backtracked, saying his problem isn’t with Smith.
“You right @stephenasmith my problem is not with you but I do plan on speaking my story on how I feel about a lot of things,” Bryant said on X.
But Bryant is no innocent victim. Since his playing days ended he’s been on social media saying wild things too, about current athletes, media members, etc.
We already have online personalities like Jake and Logan Paul who’ve turned their fame into wrestling and boxing careers that pay lucrative money. This is probably the next thing.
It will only take one media member to agree to getting into the ring with some athlete and the floodgates will open. People will spend absurd money to watch this conflict.
