Since Shannon Sharpe departed from “Undisputed,” the reasons behind the leave have been speculative. From Bayless’ penchant for firing off disrespectful tweets to his seemingly unending personal shots at Sharpe’s NFL career, there were plenty of reasons for the duo’s dissolution.
Now Uncle Shay has finally revealed why.
“In all of my TV career, that probably was… I remember going home, calling my sister, I called my brother … It took a lot for me to not put my hands on him, it actually did,” Sharpe said on “The Stephen A. Smith Show” podcast. “Why would I be jealous of Tom Brady? Tom was like me, given an opportunity. He made the most of that opportunity.”
The Tom Brady Factor
Last December, while still a co-host of “Undisputed,” Bayless engaged Sharpe in an animated debate over the poor performance of Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Needless to say it got personal.
“[Brady]’s still playing at a high level at 45 when you had to stop at 35, that’s the point!” Bayless said. It was unwarranted during the segment.
“That’s what you do,” Sharpe responded. “Every time I call something into question, I’m jealous. Skip, I did what I did. You make it seem like I was a bum! I’m in the effing Hall of Fame. I’ve got three Super Bowls. See what you do. You take personal shots.
“You’re willing to take a personal shot at me to say this man is better than me because I say he’s playing bad this year? You would disrespect me to support him!” Sharpe yelled.
Habitual Line Crosser
For Sharpe, the uncrossable line was disrespectful, especially while knowing if the shoe was on the other foot it would not fly with Bayless.
“He [Skip] felt that he could go over the top in that situation,” Sharpe continued on the podcast. “Whatever the relationship is, once one partner has no respect for the other, the other partner then in turn loses respect for said partner, then I think it is only a matter of time because I felt in that moment he had lost all 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’ve happened?”
The former version of ‘Undisputed’ is the death of a daytime sports show dynasty orchestrated by the apparent athletic jealousies of Skip Bayless and the double standard perceived by Shannon Sharpe.
