'No Respect!' Did Shannon Sharpe Nearly Beat Up Skip Bayless on Live TV?

During an appearance on "The Stephen A. Smith Show" this week - Shannon Sharpe's new ESPN home after his divorce from Skip Bayless - the former Baltimore Ravens superstar opened up about the infamous Tom Brady-related exchange.
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There is no more "punchable'' face in sports media than Skip Bayless, and maybe the only surprise about Shannon Sharpe revealing that he was tempted to "put my hands on him'' is that it took so long for it to almost occur.

Famously, the reprehensible Bayless triggered a heated argument about Tom Brady while the two worked together on FS1's "Undisputed." Bayless oddly decided to say that Brady is "way better" than the Hall of Famer Sharpe.

During an appearance on "The Stephen A. Smith Show" this week - Sharpe's new ESPN home after his divorce from Bayless - former Baltimore Ravens superstar Sharpe opened up about the infamous exchange.

Shannon and Skip
Shannon and Skip

"I remember going home, calling my sister, I called my brother. My homeboy had raced home after watching it," Sharpe said. "It took a lot for me not to put my hands on him, it actually did."

The massive Sharpe vs. Bayless, who is a tiny man in most every possible way? Physically, that wouldn't have been fair. Of course, in Bayless' hate-fueled career, "fair'' has never exactly been his calling card, either.

Sharpe said that after Bayless' live-TV insults that day, the "Undisputed" partnership was broken.

'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's only a matter of time," Sharpe said. "Because I felt in that moment (Bayless) had lost all respect for me, he had no respect for me."

Those who truly know Bayless recognize that he has no respect for ... well, anybody or anything. Sharpe's exit, for that reason, always seemed inevitable - as will surely be the case with Bayless' new TV partners, guys like Michael Irvin, Richard Sherman and Keyshawn Johnson, who are already responding to their exchanges with eye rolls and much more.


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Mike Fisher
MIKE FISHER

Mike Fisher - as a newspaper beat writer and columnist and on radio and TV, where he is an Emmy winner - has covered the NFL since 1983. He is the author of two best-selling books on the NFL.