Errol Spence Jr vs Terence Crawford
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over the moon excited about getting to play for my Dallas Cowboys. Here we go. This is the Skip Bayless Show, episode 73. This, as always, is the undisputed everything I cannot share with you during Undisputed, which, by the way, returns with Nuclear Force on August 28th. Mark your calendar today.

I will tell you why I have always, always loved boxing. It just might be my favorite sport, but why I am trying and failing to love Saturday night's Spence Crawford fight. Today, I will tell you why I feel so sorry for today's NFL running backs, many of whom participated in what I call a Zoom of Doom call just the other day.

Today, I will tell you why a recent The Athletic story about the early days of First Take shocked and disappointed and ultimately troubled me. And as always, I will answer several of your probing and provocative questions, including this one. Which phone number do I have of the most famous person other than my brother Lil Wayne? I'll answer that one.

And by the way, Lil Wayne is going to play a key role in the all new Undisputed, which launches August 28th. Are we ever in the lab right now? Wayne and I in the lab right now. Mark your calendar. But first up, as always, it is not to be skipped. Look, I'm going to say it again. I love me some boxing. Always have, always will.

I knew I loved boxing when I was in junior high school, Taft Junior High in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Seemed like every other week two guys got into it during school who decided to meet outside behind what was called Taft Stadium. Everybody in Oklahoma City knows Taft Stadium. To fight it out after school and it seemed like the entire school showed up after school to witness said fight.

People love to witness the hand-to-hand combat. I participated in several of those fights. I got my ass kicked a couple of times in those fights. But I must admit, Ernestine, my wife, hates me to say this, but I loved fighting. I love UFC too, but I'm talking about what I grew up on, which is straight fisticuffs, hand-to-hand combat. No wrestling, no judo, no kickboxing. Just epic fights.

boxing matches featuring giants of the ring, beginning with Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston, February 25th, 1964, in Miami. I remember like it was yesterday. What a shocking outcome that was. Then Ali's stunning Liston so quickly again on May 25th of 1965, that in Lewiston, Maine, the classic pictures.

Obviously, Ali was still Cassius Clay when he first became a household name before the-- for the first list and fight, not before the second one. His poster went right up on my wall in Oklahoma City. Ali was my favorite athlete when I was a kid. So at the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, I'm sure I come across that way occasionally, those were the days.

If you're old enough to have experienced them, I think you'll agree with me. The Ali days of the 60s and 70s, the Sugar Ray Leonard days of the 1980s. I was there for so many of those mega fights featuring bona fide legends who oozed charisma and all-time greatness. I was on the scene and I was behind the scenes at many of those fights. So please forgive me.

I just can't yet, yet get nearly as excited about Saturday night's Errol Spence versus Terrence Crawford in Las Vegas. Now, understand, I will definitely watch it. I will definitely tweet about it round upon round upon round. You can book that. I'm up for it. I'm just not out of my mind for it, not yet. I'm not going goosebumps for it, not yet.

Maybe I will in the moments leading up to the fight that tends to happen to me. I'm still like a little kid for sports events. But I must admit to you, I have been shocked at how little hype there's been for this fight so far. I'm taping this on Wednesday, drops early Thursday, so maybe it will change. But right now, I'm not sensing...

that everybody's talking about this fight. I'm not sensing the buildup I have for so many fights past when we were getting ready and up a month out. Now we're just two, three days out. And I'm not sensing that the world is on the edge of its seat for Spence versus Crawford. I mean, it doesn't exactly feel like Ali Frazier, which happened three times, Ali Foreman, which happened one big time,

Even Ali Larry Holmes, I was there in Las Vegas for that near the end of the champ's career. This is nothing for me like Leonard Hagler, Leonard Hearns, happened a couple times, or certainly Leonard Duran, which happened three times. These are two very good welterweights. We've been waiting for, it seems like forever, for these two to finally get in the ring and prove who's best. Errol Spence is taller.

He's clearly the better puncher to me, but Bud Crawford is longer, and he's definitely the better boxer. So even though Errol Spence grew up in Dallas, I'm obviously a big Cowboy fan, even though Errol is very close friends with a lot of the Dallas Cowboys, even though he's very close friends to my man Yella Beezy,

who tells me that Errol wants this fight very badly, and Yella's been in the gym watching him train for this fight and will obviously be there Saturday night. Despite all that, I'm gonna take Bud Crawford to slowly but surely figure out Spence, to outwit him, to outbox him, ultimately just outpoint him in a fight that I see going the distance.

But I'm gonna go unanimous decision, Crawford. But epic? Mega? When was the last one of those? I mean, seriously, one of those. For me, you can call me too old school. I gotta go back to Leonard Duran III. That was 1989. Now, we thought Mike Tyson versus Michael Spinks. That was June 27th of 1988, if you're old enough to remember that.

I thought that was going to be all-time because I thought Tyson was going to be all-time, and he mauled Michael Spinks in 91 seconds. I was there. And yet, as I look back on it, the irony was that was the beginning of the end of the Mike Tyson we thought we were going to know and love, the Tyson I thought for a while was going to be beyond Ali. No, he wasn't ready for what happened to him out of the ring.

which brings me to Floyd Mayweather Jr. As great as he started to become, and that was starting in 1996, Floyd just never had Ali's or Sugar Ray's charisma factor, the magnetism out of the ring, even the showmanship in the ring of those two. Because as we all know, Floyd was simply the greatest defensive fighter ever. I mean, I'm giving him ever.

but he never had the offensive firepower to match the defensive acumen and skill. He never had the personality, to me, the personality that was captivating in interviews. Floyd was never a very good interviewee, while Ali and Sugar Ray owned interviews. Sugar Ray would have beaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. because

To me, Sugar Ray Leonard, if you go back that far, was an underrated puncher, had underrated punching power. Ray would have been able to match Floyd in strategic brilliance, even in supreme defensive skill. But Ray eventually would have caught Floyd with one shot, one big shot that would have staggered Floyd, maybe even dropped him, and would have given Ray the edge in the fight.

I believe that Ray would have hit Floyd much harder and much more than he was ever hit in all of his quote-unquote fights. Ray wasn't just a pretty boy. Ray could flat-out punch. And Ray's heart to me was always bigger than Floyd's. I'm not a Floyd fan, so maybe I'm being too hard on him, but I'll take Ray's heart, his guts, his grit, his desire, his refuse to lose, even over Floyd's. The problem was,

Floyd never really got, to me, tested. I mean, tested, tested. No mega fight, no epic fight. Show me one truly worthy Floyd foe, just one. Show me the Ali equivalent, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, or the Sugar Ray equivalent of a Hagler, or Hearns, or a Duran. You can't. I mean, Oscar De La Hoya?

Oscar was pretty much done when he finally fought Floyd. That was May 5th of 2007. We had just moved our cold pizza show that day. It was obviously Saturday. We moved up to Bristol, Connecticut to the mothership at ESPN, so I remember it well. It was my first night in the residence inn in Bristol, Connecticut. But remember, Oscar wound up losing four of his last five, excuse me, four of his last seven fights. Oscar lost four of his last seven.

including that joke of a pillow fight against Floyd. And Oscar fought only twice after he lost badly to Floyd. Yes, yes, yes, I understand Floyd did "fight" Canelo, but he just took Canelo to school when Canelo was just a boxing baby. Cotto, Judah, Marquez, Maidana, Ortiz, come on, just a bunch of pretty goods, no legends.

Shane Mosley was 39 years of age when he fought Floyd. Which brings me to my man, Manny Pacquiao. May 2nd, 2015. I was there. That was mega. Floyd versus Manny in Vegas. But unfortunately, as you probably remember, Floyd was 38, Manny was 36, both on the backsides of their careers,

And Manny tore his rotator cuff sparring just before that fight, and he had to have surgery to fix said rotator cuff the Monday after that fight. And I put quotes around fight. Epic buildup, not outcome. But you want to know what did send the goosebumps racing up and down my arms? The buildup to August 26th of 2017. I was there in Las Vegas. McGregor Mayweather.

No matter what you think now of Conor McGregor, he had Ali Sugar Ray magnetism in and out of the ring. You couldn't take your eyes or your ears off Conor McGregor as we built up to that fight. Talk about pregame press conferences. He was the king of those. Just the mere curiosity factor detonated that fight into the biggest pay-per-view goldmine in boxing history.

Could the knockout artist, Conor McGregor, with so much thunder in that left hand of his, so much reach and range because he was so long, could he land just one shot on Floyd's unscarred mug? I thought he could. I thought Conor had Floyd in trouble that night in Las Vegas, in the corner in the ninth round, before that referee, Robert Byrd, saved Floyd from disgrace.

by incomprehensibly moving the fighters out of the corner and into the center of the ring before having them touch gloves and recommence fighting. What? Conor had him in trouble in the corner in the ninth. Obviously, the fight ended in the tenth, but I don't think Conor McGregor shamed himself in that fight. I enjoyed the outcome of the fight. I enjoyed the fight itself. And did I ever enjoy the buildup?

but we're talking about an mma fighter trying to box a legendary boxer the greatest defensive boxer ever and of course that night floyd was 40 years of age that's mega that's epic i mean it was for me because that's all we had december 1st 2018 we did have the first wilder fury controversial ending which led to a second one which proved to the world that wilder was just too small

not skilled enough as a boxer to hang in with Tyson Fury when it mattered the most. Mega epic? I don't know. Not for me. So we have to go all the way back to Leonard Duran III in 1989? To me, by then, Sugar Ray owned Duran psychologically. So was it Leonard Hagler, 1987? I love that fight.

Was it maybe the Leonard Hearns rematch, which led to a draw in 1989? Look, I am very interested to see who wins Errol Spence versus Bud Crawford. But I'm not that interested in Errol or Bud themselves. I mean, understand, Muhammad Ali once called me at home. He once called me at home to do an interview. Picked up the phone. Hey, it's the champ.

Understand, I once went to Big Bear and hung out with Ken Norton Sr. long before I covered Ken Norton Jr. when he played for the Super Bowl-winning Dallas Cowboys. This was Ken Norton Sr. who fought Ali three big, bad times, once broke Ali's jaw. I hung with him in his training site up in Big Bear before the third Norton-Ali fight. All of them went to the wire.

He was one of Ali's toughest opponents, and I got to know him. I got to hear it from the inside out. I got to hit the road once upon a time with Leon Spinks after he beat the champ, after he beat Ali in Las Vegas. Shocked him. You want to talk about a better-than-fiction, bigger-than-fiction character, a hero to the masses? Leon Spinks?

I flew with him to Detroit after that fight. I flew with him to New York. I flew with him to Atlanta. Then I went with him up to Hilton Head to his training camp. The first day I was there, Leon's trainer pulled me aside, pointed across the gym to a couple of guys, nefarious-looking characters, told me they were mafia hitmen who had been sent to eliminate him from Leon's camp.

And he made such an exaggerated display of this that the alleged hitmen saw that he was pointing them out to this reporter, which made this reporter lose all kinds of sleep that night thinking, are they going to eliminate me also because now I know what they know that the trainer knew. Those were the days. Nothing has thrilled me.

in sports more than boxing has. Two combatants trying to whip each other hand to hand in a confined space. I try to explain, just one split second mistake, one out of nowhere punch, one big roundhouse right, left uppercut, slipping through, landing flush to the jaw, and it can be over in an instant. That's what I love about boxing. So I'll definitely be watching Spence Crawford. I hope it's a great fight.

I'm sure a lot of celebs are gonna be in attendance. I know my man Wayne is gonna be there. Because we all look for an excuse to go to Vegas for the weekend. But Rumble in the Jumble? Thrilla in Manila? Nah. Those days are gone. Long gone. I'm afraid that way too many potentially great young fighters saw what happened to Muhammad Ali after his career ended, saw his later life condition,

saw what the thriller in Manila had potentially done to his brain. That was the greatest fight I ever saw. Those two nearly killed each other, Ali and Frazier. And so many aspiring boxers, potential stars, potential legends said, "No, I think I'll try football." Or better still, basketball.

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Let's get to your questions. This is Kyle from Washington, D.C.,

Whose phone number is the most famous person you have besides Lil Wayne? I would say Troy Aikman's. I texted Troy the night he premiered, debuted on Monday Night Football. I texted him, congrats on sitting in the same chair Dandy Don once occupied. Troy, a couple hours before the telecast started, texted right back with a thank you and I quote,

"It's definitely not lost on me that I'm sitting in Meredith's chair. What an honor." Troy texted back to me. I had the privilege of covering Troy when he played quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. We did have our differences on occasion, but I always liked him, liked him a lot. Always loved interviewing Troy because he had such a great football mind and the ability to express it.

which ultimately led, of course, to Troy becoming an all-time great game analyst on television. Now, obviously, this past season, our man Greg Olson here at Fox was a revelation sitting in Troy's old seat. But I do keep in touch with Troy. I'm proud to know him. His second career has been just as great as his first. This is Howard from Downey, California.

Is there any chance we'll see you at SoFi, as in stadium, when the Cowboys play the Chargers this year? Speaking of Troy Aikman, that game will be played on a Monday night, October 16th. It will kick off at 8.15 Eastern or 5.15 out here in Los Angeles. I do live out here in LA. I would dearly love to attend that game, but I'm leaning toward no.

It's just hard to explain how much show prep the night before goes into the making of Undisputed. I would have to leave my place on the west side of Los Angeles to get to SoFi on time. I'd have to leave by 2ish, 2 o'clock in the afternoon to beat the rush hour traffic. Game will be over at, out here, 8.15, maybe 8.30.

It is nightmarish trying to get out of that stadium. There's no easy way out. It could take at least an hour for me to get home, if not more. I get up every morning at 2:00 a.m. sharp. I leap out of bed to do Undisputed. So start doing the math on lost sleep. So much prep, so much post-game prep, especially on a Cowboy Monday night game, must be done the night before. So much video requesting.

so much ordering of my notes to make sure I understood exactly what happened in the game and what my opinions are and my ammunition will be to defend said positions. So in the end, you can see, the truth is, you can just see so much more on TV. I don't really relish the prospect of going to the game. Let's say I go to a luxury box. Am I going to watch the game constantly on TV? Then why did I go in the first place?

Most of you, obviously, will be watching on TV. Most of you will have your thoughts influenced by how Troy analyzes said game. I want to hear how Troy analyzes the game in case I need to respond to it, pro or con. I need to know what you saw on television. If I sit out in the stands, I lose complete touch with the TV coverage. I don't see as much of the game as you'll be able to see on television.

It's just so hard for me to be on Undisputed and attend said games. I would love to attend that game. If I weren't working anymore, if I didn't have anything else to do, I would be there. You can bet on it. But the more I talk, the more I realize it's very doubtful I'll be at that game. Now, one quick thought before I go on to the next topic about my Cowboys. I read the other day in USA Today, Nate Davis did his annual interview.

record predictions for every NFL team, starting off with the Eagles going 12-5 and my Cowboys, obviously in the same division, going 9-8. What? 12-5 to 9-8? Now, he did have, Nate did have the Cowboys eking into the playoffs, but the Eagles being the best team in the NFC. Even though the Eagles play off last year's one loss records, the hardest NFL schedule going into this year.

Cowboys are tied for fourth in difficulty of schedule, but Eagles are number one. They're going to have two new coordinators. They're going to have a half dozen new starters. I'll give you this. They could open hot just the way they did last year. They started off 13-1 last year. I don't think they're going to go 13-1, but they're opening, what, five games at New England, Minnesota, at Tampa, Washington, and at Rams. They could win those first five.

There's a stretch a little later at Kansas City, then Buffalo, then 49ers, then at Dallas, then at Seahawks, and then Giants. They're going to lose some of those games, if not a whole bunch of those games. I think they might limp to the finish line. I give you that my Cowboys play a much, much tougher schedule than they played last year. But my Cowboys defense will be better than Philly's defense. Might be a whole lot better.

By the way, I had a recent conversation with Richard Sherman, who's very close with Stephon Gilmore, stays in close touch with Stephon, and said that Stephon is over the moon excited about getting to play for my Dallas Cowboys. My Cowboys stole him in a trade, stole Brandon Cooks in a trade, but Stephon Gilmore is the last piece to what I think could be a Super Bowl puzzle for the Cowboy defense.

This team will go as far as the defense, and my oh myka, 11 from heaven, carries this team. I don't love my quarterback. I don't love my head coach calling plays for said quarterback. But I do love my defense, and I do love my team's chances a little more than I love this year's Eagles' chances. So there.

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$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes each detail. Speaking of the NFL, I'm sorry, but I found this running back's Zoom call the other day just plain sad. The Zoom of doom. I guess it was Austin Eckler, who, by the way, has the brains to match the size of his heart. Does he not run with every last ounce of his heart?

I guess Austin was the driving force behind the Zoom that featured Nick Chubb and Derrick Henry and Saquon and C-Mac and Josh Jacobs and several other star ball carriers. It was reported that they were commiserating over the devaluing of their position. They were putting their heads together to try to figure out how to reverse this trend, a trend that to me just cannot be reversed.

Today's running backs are classically damned if they do or damned if they don't. If they don't run as hard, if they try harder to protect themselves, then obviously they lose at least a little of their value to their team. Yet, the harder they run, the sooner they'll probably get hurt or at least take so much punishment that they'll lose some of their edge, shorten their career. The problem here is

As running backs over the years have evolved, have gotten bigger, stronger, faster, so do the defenders who tackle them. The human body is still very human, as we all know. It simply cannot withstand the kind of beating that these running backs take, as long as they once were able to withstand it. The NFL running back's lifespan is growing ever shorter by the moment, by the carry.

I thought this was starting to happen back in 1978, '79, 1980 with Earl Campbell. Do you remember Earl Campbell? The Tyler Rose. He tortured my Oklahoma Sooners when he was at Texas. He punished them. He literally ran over my Oklahoma Sooners as did his Texas teams.

Earl led the NFL in rushing his first three years. He was Rookie of the Year, then he was the MVP, then he was the Offensive Player of the Year in his third year, all for the Houston Oilers, as you probably remember. Then he hit the wall, and he hit it hard. He was a high-speed, high-collision running back. His shelf life was short. You can run over only so many linebackers and so many strong safeties,

before you use up your collision quota that you get for one life. Back then we started calling it the Earl Campbell syndrome. Yet, out of the blue, here came this kid from Jackson State, a kid named Walter Payton, defying those odds and that trend. Walter led the league in rushing only one time. That was his third year. But Walter at 5'10", just 200 pounds,

had a lot more make-you-miss than Earl Campbell ever had, while Walter still would run with just as much heart as Austin Eckler ever has. Never seen anything quite like Walter Payton. It was flat-out freaky that Walter Payton lasted as long as he did. 13 years, 13 seasons.

while staying astonishingly healthy for 13 seasons, astonishingly healthy. Nothing career-threatening. Walter's motto was never die easy. Walter refused to run out of bounds. Walter never, ever suffered a single career-threatening injury. Walter was rare, which brings me to Emmett Smith, who was even rarer. Emmett was rare-est.

Emmitt, of course, broke Walter Payton's all-time career rushing record. Emmitt got a lot of running backs who came after him overpaid as team after team tried and failed to draft the next Emmitt. There's only one of those guys. I'm just not sure we will ever, ever, ever see another Emmitt Smith. I did have the honor of covering him back in the 1990s after he fell to 17th in the draft because he ran a 4-6-40 draft.

4'6", Jimmy Johnson, the new Dallas Cowboy coach, knew Emmitt from coaching against him, Miami versus Florida. He said, "I want that guy. All I know is he can run with the football and we couldn't tackle him." He fell to 17th in the draft because he ran 4'6". So as I got to know his new position coach, Norv Turner, the offensive coordinator of the Cowboys,

North started talking about Emmett's rare, what he called quickness in a confined space. Emmett was the polar opposite of Earl Campbell and a far, far cry from Walter Payton. Emmett Smith was the greatest ever at avoiding contact. I'd never seen anything like it. He also benefited from running behind the greatest, to me, offensive line in the history of the National Football League. A bunch of bull elephants.

Emmitt at 5'9", could duck and dart behind those bull elephants. And before the linebackers could find him, he was five yards clear. And one thing about Emmitt, he ran faster than 4'6", with a football tucked under his arm. I never saw him caught from behind. But did Emmitt run out of bounds? Yes, he ran out of bounds. Did Emmitt always live to fight another player? Yep, he always did. He had hamstring pulls, but never any career-threatening knee, shoulder injuries.

No Achilles, no serious injuries. He lived to fight, did Emmitt Smith, for 15 years. 15 years? You're kidding. Look at these numbers. I got them right here. Emmitt Smith. He managed 4,409 carries. I'm not even going to get into the catches, but just carries for 18,355 yards.

4.2 yards every time he touched the football. That's 571 more carries than Walter Payton managed in 13 years. 571 more carries. Walter averaged 4.4 per touch, per carry. Then I looked down the list, Barry Sanders,

retired prematurely, I thought, after 10 seasons. But Barry did play 10 seasons. He averaged 5.0 yards per touch. That's the most of any of the top 10 all-time leading rushers. But now that I look back at it, Barry quit because Detroit just couldn't win, couldn't surround him with enough talent, couldn't find the right quarterback. I think Barry got out while the getting was good. I looked down the list, and I think happened to a lot of guys.

They either stayed too long or they got out. Jim Brown, the great Jim Brown, you can make a guess, he was the greatest running back ever. I'd never seen anything like him. Man among boys. He quit over a contractual impasse, Art Modell, to become an actor at age 29. Well, maybe he got out while the getting was good. These guys just aren't going to last that long, and if they do, they're going to pay for it in later life, which brings me to

the two active all-time leading rushers. These are active. Derrick Henry, 8,335 yards, ranks 42nd all-time. 42nd all-time. Hadn't even cracked the top 40. And right behind him at 43rd is this guy named Ezekiel Elliott, who used to play for my Dallas Cowboys. He's got 8,262 yards, but as you know,

After he led the league in average yards per game his first three years, Zeke, even though he led those first three years, his average yards per game fell each of his seven seasons. Each of his seven seasons down, down, down, down, down. He started at 109 yards a game as a rookie. He finished last season at 58 yards a game. Do the math.

He's about half the back he was as a rookie. I've told you before, the harder I look at what Zeke did for my Cowboys, he had one year and one great year only. It was his rookie year. I gave a lot of the credit to Dak. Maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe it was Zeke who lifted that team to 13-3 in the number one seed in the NFC. Obviously, they lost to Aaron Rodgers on two hand-of-God field goals at the end of that game.

But I don't know if anybody's even going to give Zeke a shot. Surely somebody will just bring him to camp and see what he's got left. But he went Earl Campbell. He's the modern day Earl Campbell. He hit the wall after three years. I can't tell you the joy he gave me and the pain he caused me. The joy for three years and the pain for four. Every carry it seemed like last year was one yard in a cloud of dust.

Every carry. He tried hard. He ran hard. He ran into the wall as hard as he could run into it, but he just kept hitting that brick career running back wall. Tony Pollard, a godsend, a revelation, a breakout year last year. Second in the league, 5.2 yards per carry. 5.2. Went over 1,000 yards, 1,007 yards as the quote-unquote backup back.

and right on schedule, second playoff game, the one they lost at San Francisco. Tony broke his leg, messed up his ankle, needed surgery, just turned 26, he's played four seasons, playing on the tag now, 10.1 million, signed his tender. They say he's right on schedule to be back 100%. Is he? Will he be? I don't know. He's a running back. Jerry's learned his lesson. You can't bet long term.

Giants learning their lesson with Saquon. I actually think Tony Pollard can be better than Saquon, but how long will he last? I don't know. Saquon's had his injury issues. They gave him a one-year deal. It's not exactly the tag because he got $2 million in signing bonus, but he'll also be making $10.1 million. Can't bet long-term on these running backs. So I back away from this and

And I hope I'm wrong. I hope there's another Emmett out there. I hope there's another Walter Payton out there. But I also hope Jerry Jones learned his lesson. He made Ezekiel Elliott the highest paid running back for what he had done, not what he could do. He way overpaid Zeke, way overpaid him, because he was never even close to what he was his first year after three years. Now on the bright side, just a quick thought.

I believe in Bijan Robinson. I believe he's about to elevate the Atlanta Falcons, maybe close to the way Zeke lifted the Cowboys as a rookie. Bijan, 5'11", 215-ish, extremely shifty, just extremely hard to tackle. I know because I watched him terrorize my Oklahoma Sooners.

he will ignite the atlanta falcons in somewhat i don't want to go too far here but somewhat the same way michael vick did once upon a time of course there's only one michael vick only one michael vick experience in atlanta but you know what i just might pick atlanta to win that very winnable division but the point is will bijan have the same impact after

Three or four years after four or five years? That's anybody's guess. But history will tell you, no. Back to your questions. This is Jordan from Los Angeles. Can you ice skate, rollerblade, or skateboard? Now this one hits me out of the blue. You know what, Jordan? I believe I can do all three. But I do not want to do any of the three and I will not attempt any of the three. I did roller skate as a kid and I was pretty good at it.

I even ice skated once, believe it or not, in Oklahoma City. They did have some sort of ice skating rink for a while. I went out and tried it and I was not bad at it. But I don't ice skate. I don't rollerblade. I don't skateboard. For the same reason I don't snow ski or for that matter water ski. All of the above just too dangerous for me. Now my brother Wayne

He has already been ordained as a professional skateboarder. Professional. He is now qualified as a pro. He lives to skateboard. He seeks out skateboarding parks wherever he goes on tour. Wayne is in phenomenal shape because of his skateboarding. Phenomenal, trust me. But Wayne has had his share of skateboard injuries and surgeries. He's had several.

So I'm as addicted to lifting weights and running and playing basketball as he is to skateboarding. My primary goal at this stage of my life is simply to stay as healthy as possible. I beat myself enough lifting weights and running and playing basketball. All I care about now

is being able to continue to do what I love the most every single day, which excludes ice skating and rollerblading and skateboarding. Thank you very much. Vic from Mesa, Arizona asks, "What are your PRs when it comes to weightlifting?" Weightlifting?

Okay, so I go about 5 feet 10 inches. I think I used to be 5'11", but I've run so many miles, I've battered myself into about 5'10", my spine. I go about 165. I will admit, I used to chest press very heavy weight, at least for me. That's when I first got into crazy weightlifting. I'd have to go back to around 2000, so this is 23 years ago. I once maxed out.

benching 95-pound dumbbells, 95, not the bar. My arms are too long for the bar. I can't get up under it. I don't have those T-Rex arms, but I could do the dumbbells. At least I used to be able to. I got up the 95-pounders five times, 165 pounds. For me, that's pretty good. But of course, my shoulders began to balk, ache.

Even recently, I feared I'd torn rotator cuff to the point I was so sore I had to have an MRI. My orthopedic surgeon took a look at it and said, "Looks like you have an old tear, but I don't see anything new that's going to require current surgery." So I got an old rotator cuff tear, not surprised at that. So now I'm into much lighter chest pressing weight, but much higher reps. I still go at it hard, but I'm going high reps as opposed to high weight.

But I do still lift heavy for my back. My back is my strong suit, if you will. Even though I did once rupture my biceps tendon doing a back machine. Over here, still got the scar right here. As my surgeon said, that operation is a bitch and trust me, it is. The rehab is a bitch. But on my universal set at home...

When I do do back exercises, I still lift the entire stack on several back movements. But I'll be the first to admit that's probably more for my pride and my vanity than my overall fitness. And David from Florida asks, could you qualify for next year's Boston Marathon? I could, but I won't. I completed, I believe, nine marathons back in my psycho marathon stage of my life.

That included Boston and New York. I will not do another one. I'm just too competitive. I cared too much about my times. And to run as fast as I once did, it required me to lose way too much weight. My running weight, my marathon days was 145, if you can believe that. I look skeletal, 165 now. But to run as fast as I did, I had to get down to 145.

which obviously required losing way too much muscle for my vanity and it caused way too many overuse injuries especially to my back. They say you have one great marathon in you and I did. I had one magical Saturday, Houston, Texas believe it or not. It rained, just a steady rain. It was 55 degrees. That is perfect marathon weather.

This was at the Woodlands. You can look it up. I ran two hours, 47 minutes and 20 seconds. I finished in the top 10 that day. You can look that up. In those days, my age group had to run under 250 to qualify for Boston. So I did and I went and I ran Boston. Maybe it ran me.

maybe Heartbreak Hill, which is actually a series of three hills, broke my heart. But I did Boston, and I finished Boston, and I was proud of it, and I did that, and I'm done with it. Nine marathons, I never walked a single step. I'm still in very good running shape, but not marathon shape, not two-hour, 47-minute shape. Those days, for me, like Ali and Sugar Ray days, long gone.

My final item here, though I do have one more question from you I'll answer, but my final bigger item, nobody will care about except me. So please indulge me. Let me get this off my chest and my chest only. And please understand up front, I love reading The Athletic. I read it every single day. I do. As God is my witness, particularly I read about my Cowboys. I read about LeBron's Lakers. Coverage is sensational.

I know and respect several of the writers who now write for The Athletic, so I guess my expectations were high, maybe too high, when I was told that The Athletic was doing a story on the early days of First Take. Now here's the story, my story, behind the story. I didn't hear about this story until my former boss, Marcia Keegan, my former boss at ESPN,

contacted me to see if I had been interviewed for this story as she had been interviewed. No, I had not. Hadn't heard a word about it. She said they had interviewed my man Stephen A. Smith, obviously still on First Take, who joined me as my full-time partner at the end of our first NFL season of going all debate for two hours on ESPN2. Through that first football season, it was pretty much

Me versus the world with Stephen A. just doing one segment a week. That was the top of the second hour on Wednesdays. Yet no writer from The Athletic had reached out to me that I was aware of. Marsha Keegan said the writer who interviewed her said they had left several messages with Fox PR to get in touch with me, but that they hadn't heard back. Huh?

So, I checked on that and I was told that nobody in Fox PR had received a request to interview me. Nobody knew about any requests. Maybe signals got crossed, maybe the request fell through the cracks, I don't know. But I was told that no request had been received from the athletic to interview me by Fox PR.

Marsha Keegan recommended that I should get a hold of a writer at The Athletic, but not the writer who had interviewed her, which seemed odd to me, but whatever. And by the way, this story would wind up with a triple byline. Three writers for a story about the early days of First Take? I mean, it wasn't exactly Watergate. Go figure. So I did text the third writer whose number was given to me.

by Marcia Keegan, third writer listed on said triple byline. His name's Stephen J. Nesbitt. And he turned out to be a great guy, asked great questions, very good listener. I seemed to have a very good click with him. We talked for maybe three hours in two different sessions that Saturday, July 8th. Little did I know that the story was on the way to being posted just four days later.

But I did spill everything I knew about cold pizza becoming First Take, First Take becoming a two-hour all-debate show that took off the way you could make a case no show ever took off in ESPN history. I'd been encouraged by Marcia and others to be thorough, others I still work with here at FS1, all who played key roles in the early days of First Take.

All those people were even more offended than I was a year and a couple of months ago when my man Stephen A. Smith went on JJ Reddick's podcast and, let me say, revised history by suggesting that first take ratings didn't explode until he joined full-time. What? That's just not true. Stephen A. and I talked it out.

We worked it out. We're fine now. But I was encouraged by many who were very closely involved in those early days to tell the whole truth about what happened and nothing but the truth, and I did. But I will admit I was surprised when Steven J. Nesbitt asked me about the blueberry muffin story, and I was shocked.

when the writers of this piece thought so much of that story that they led their story with this story about the blueberry muffins. It opens the story. I'll read it to you in just a moment. I did ask Steven J. Nesbitt one favor. Since he already had the story and said he loved the story, I asked him not to quote me on the story as if I had brought up the story to him.

I wasn't sure that Stephen A. Smith would love this story, and I didn't want him to think that I had volunteered it to the reporter and was somehow rubbing in this story. But I did tell Stephen J. Nesbitt my version of the blueberry muffin story, a story I figured he pretty much already knew. And I do think this story is a fascinating window into how great my relationship was

and has been for 23 years with my man Stephen A. Smith. But now for the next shock, my next shock. When the story posted on The Athletic four days later, they used very little of what I told Stephen J. Nesbitt about the early days of First Take or about the blueberry muffin story. I'm just guessing here, but it felt like the story had already been written for The Athletic without me.

And when I contacted Steve and Jay Nesbitt, that they just added a few short quotes from me, just two or three, it seemed like, one-sentence type quotes, just to show that they did, in fact, interview me. But shock number two was, they did begin with the blueberry muffin story, but they got it all wrong. Despite what I told Steve and Jay Nesbitt, they just got it all wrong. They swung and missed on what I thought was a very interesting

enlightening story. So let me read you the beginning of the athletic story on the beginning of all debate first take. This is the story by Rustin Dodd, Jason Jenks, and Stephen J. Nesbitt.

In June 2012, in the middle of the NBA Finals, Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless locked into another disagreement. This one sounded nothing like their battles on ESPN's first take, the controversial morning debate show that was changing sports television. It was much quieter and more aimless than a back-and-forth about LeBron James or Tim Tebow. It was about blueberry muffins. It all started one morning in Miami.

The show was taking off. Smith had joined Bayless as a full-time sparring partner only months before. And road shows were still a novelty, so the producers laid out a breakfast spread. The selections included a limited number of blueberry muffins, which Smith very passionately, parentheses, and very respectfully, according to staffers, closed parentheses, declared as awful.

When a second and then apparently a third muffin did not meet Smith's approval, the situation reached an impasse. While Smith complained about blueberry muffins, Bayless complained about Smith complaining about the blueberry muffins, a Seinfeldian moment that, according to multiple staffers, symbolized the pair's off-screen dynamic. They argued about everything and nothing, and occasionally about whether they argued in the first place.

"I have no recollection of it," Smith told The Athletic recently when asked about the muffin episode. "And to be honest," said Smith, "to be quite honest with you, it's an idiotic story." Then back to the print here, back to the story, and I continue to quote it. "One was a reserve former sports writer from Oklahoma," me, "who watched games in his hotel room all night, woke up at dawn to run an hour

and memorized a daily packet of notes to prepare for debates. The other was a magnetic former newspaper man from New York who hated jogging, spent his nights in noisy arenas, and sometimes rolled into pre-show meetings with minutes to spare. They rarely hung out, rarely went to dinner, and rarely agreed, but they created a saying to sum up their mutual respect. Quote, "We always love each other. We rarely seem to like each other." Unquote.

and I'll leave it there. Maybe you read the story, maybe you didn't. Maybe you choose to go back now and read it, maybe you don't. Now, my reaction. The show wasn't just taking off, it had taken off like a rocket launched from Cape Canaveral through the NFL season. We did ratings during that season that Stephen A and I never were able to match. We rated very well, but not like those we got especially after Tebow games.

Now, here's what happened with the blueberry muffins. There were no blueberry muffins the first day. We had put the show together. We had broken up. There were only six or seven of us. We had kind of a skeleton road crew in Miami at ESPN Deportes Studios. We were not doing live crowds yet. We were doing it inside at Deportes.

We're in a conference room. They did have a little makeshift breakfast spread. Steve and I went and sniffed at it for a second. I was at the back of the room prepping as usual. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw him turn to the group and put his hands up and say, "No blueberry muffins?" And I got up and I walked up to him because he is my brother and he had fairly recently joined the show. And I defused the situation by saying,

"Nobody knew that you wanted a blueberry muffin." I talked to him in just this tone of voice and he always listened to me. He was great with me. I said, "Look, if you want a blueberry muffin, I promise you they will get you a blueberry muffin. They'll get you two or three blueberry muffins tomorrow." And he said, "I need a blueberry muffin." "Great, we will get you one." Stephen A. was kind of flexing his Stephen A. muscles because we'd had one incident before in a meeting, Bristol, a pre-show meeting.

By the way, sometimes he was a little late for those meetings, but that's Stephen A., and that's why I love him. But at one point, one of our producers snapped at him in the meeting, and I snapped at the producer, and I said to that producer, you can ask Stephen A., do you know who you're talking to? That's Stephen A. Smith. Can Stephen A. be a bit of a diva sometimes? Yes, he can, but that's what fuels him to his greatness on air.

That's his rocket fuel. My wife, Ernestine, often says to me, "You know what? You need to be a little more of a diva. You deserve to be a diva. You don't stand up for yourself enough. You don't act like who you are on television off camera." And I don't. That's just me. But she's right. I don't draw a line in the sand enough. I don't say, "No, it's going to be this way because it should be this way because it deserves to be this way."

But I loved it that Stephen A. said, "I want a blueberry muffin." And guess what? The next day, there was a blueberry muffin for him. And guess what he did the next day? He sniffed at the blueberry muffins. I think they got six of them. And he turned away, and he walked away. And at the back of the room, I said, "Hey, wait a second. They got you blueberry muffins." And he turned to me and said, "I'm just not hungry today." That's the Stephen A. I know and love.

I wish I had more of that in me. But now to the ultimate punchline of this story that nearly tore me apart. That first day at ESPN Deportes, moments later, we're out on their set, and we go live at 10:00 a.m. Eastern, previewing game three of the finals between Oklahoma City and Miami, the first game at Miami. It's one-to-one, if you might remember.

And as we go live with Jay Crawford as our moderator, the producer in the control room accidentally hit what I think they called the all call button where we could hear what the producer was saying in the control room. And just at that moment, our showrunner, Jamie Horowitz, had just flown in. He just walked in to the back of the control room. And the producer turned to tell Jamie about the blueberry muffin story because

My crew there, our group, our staff, hadn't worked with Stephen A. on the road before, and they thought it was hilarious that he was demanding a blueberry muffin. It was just so vintage Stephen A. that they didn't yet know. So the producer is telling our showrunner this story in our ears as we're on live TV trying to talk thunder heat. Durant versus LeBron.

And I'm hearing the story in my ear, knowing that Jay and Stephen A. are hearing this story in their ears as we try to talk over and through the story. Well, this is horrifying because I was afraid that Stephen A. would leap to the conclusion, rightfully so, that he's being laughed at behind the scenes. He's being humiliated. He's being shamed. And I'm watching his eyes for any note, any indication,

that he is hearing what I'm hearing, and I can't see any. And we talk through it and finish, and Jay, obviously heard it, is looking sideways at me like, "Uh-oh, here we go." And I'm thinking Stephen A is going to throw a fit when we go to commercial break. I'm thinking that producer is going to be off our show. Or I'm thinking Stephen A is gonna walk off the set as he deserved to walk off the set.

That was just wrong, but that happened. And to this day, I don't know why, Stephen A either didn't hear or it did not compute because I watched carefully as we went to break, took his phone as always and start scrolling through his Twitter responses as always, like nothing had happened. And I'm looking at Jay and he's looking at me like, whew, did we just dodge one? It could have disrupted the whole rest of the show and we'd only just done our A block.

That was the blueberry muffin story that I knew. That's what I shared with Steven J. Nesbitt. And none of that got in the athletic. And then back to the part about we rarely hung out, rarely went to dinner, rarely agreed. I'll give you rarely agreed, just naturally disagreed on everything. But we did hang out. We did go to dinner. And once I left to come out here to join FS1,

Every time Stephen A came to LA for those first four years, every single time he came to LA, and it seemed like he'd come once a month, he always, without fail, came over to visit me and Ernestine at our place here in LA. Always. Does that qualify as hanging out? We went to dinner several times here in LA. Lunch. More lunch than dinner. But we went out. And then this idea of

We created a saying to sum up our mutual respect, which is, "We always love each other. We rarely seem to like each other." That's just not true. I don't know anything about that saying. I know nothing about it. I never heard that. And it's just flat out false. I do love him. I believe he loves me. But we rarely seem to like each other? I always liked him. That was the beauty of our relationship.

So, Ernestine told me that she saw or read that Stephen A. had dismissed the athletic story about the early days of First Take as a quote-unquote Skip Bayless puff piece. What? I got a big chuckle out of that one because I'm not sure it could be a puff piece given the fact that they apparently were ready to go forward without even talking to me for the piece and given the fact that

98%, maybe 99.9% of what I told Steven J. Nesbitt over three hours of interview made it into the piece. Puff piece? I think not. There's also one other anecdote about a show we did at Fort Sam Houston on Veterans Day in San Antonio. This is before Steven A. joined. I think I had Jemele Hill on for that show. Darren Woodson was our analyst.

Former cowboy, good friend of mine. It was Tebow's third start that year. He had won in overtime at Miami, gone home, gotten doors blown off by Detroit. This was at Oakland against the arch rival Raiders. They were down 17 to seven and a half. They stormed back to win 38 to 24. And our staff on Sunday got together and watched the game in that conference room we had at Fort Sam Houston.

So I was there with the staff and our showrunner, Jamie Horowitz, had insisted that I bring Ernestine because he'd never met Ernestine. So they met on that Saturday. Then I went back to the hotel and watched LSU Alabama, if you remember, six to nothing. But on Sunday, Ernestine had a job that was kicked back in on Monday in New York City. So she flew back home. And the anecdote was that as I was moving around the room to find Ernestine,

a seat that didn't jinx Tebow, which is true. I did. I finally found a seat that really worked, a magic seat, that Ernestine was there rubbing my shoulders. I'm not sure my wife has ever rubbed my shoulders. I could be wrong about that, but the other problem was she flew home on that Sunday morning, so I'm pretty sure she wasn't there. So here's the point of all this. It astounded me and disappointed me and ultimately troubled me

that a publication I respect so much got this so wrong. Remember, I came up through the newspaper business. Started with the Miami Herald right out of school. LA Times soon after that. I wrote hundreds and hundreds of newspaper stories. I wrote thousands of newspaper columns. I wrote dozens of magazine articles. And I wrote three books all on the Dallas Cowboys. You can call me crazy.

You can say I'm inaccurate here, but I'm here to tell you, I don't remember one time in my career where somebody came back to me and said, "You got that all wrong." I just didn't get it wrong because I did the legwork. I did the homework. I did the interviews. I knew what I needed to know. Now, a whole lot of people took exception to my opinions in my columns. Some people took exception to how dare you write about that in the first place.

But nobody ever, ever, ever said, "You just got that flat out wrong." So does any of this reach the level of rival? No, obviously not. I grew up hearing from my many detractors, "Today's newspaper, tomorrow's toilet paper," okay? Look, the media has always hated me. I accept it. I live with it. I believe the media has always loved Stephen A. He's a great character.

He's fun, can be funny. I get all that. He's far more lovable than I am. But in the end, I just wanted to set my record straight on blueberry muffins. It's just something I wanted to get off my chest. And maybe I'm finally taking Ernestine's advice and being a little bit more of a diva. One last question. This is Ben from Georgia. Did you attend Barbenheimer?

Not yet. Coming out of the pandemic, my wife Ernestine still isn't real keen on sitting in the close confines of a packed theater, and I'm with her on that. We've gone to the movies, I don't know, three or four times since the pandemic sort of ended, but that's only when the theater is maybe a third or fourth full. Now we look at the seating charts for Barbie and Oppenheimer.

They are sold out, at least out here in LA, for the next couple of weeks. I'm talking about the 10:00 AMs or the midnights. They're just sold out. So we wait. I'm a student of World War II. I can't wait to see what the great Christopher Nolan did with the pivotal moment in the history of this world, in my opinion. But we wait. The original Barbie lives across the street from us out here in LA. Her mom, Rand Mattel,

invented the first ever true-to-life doll. That was in 1959. And named that doll after her daughter, whose name was already Barbie. A very nice lady who now lives across the street from us here in L.A. But we wait.

That's it for episode 73. Thank you for listening and or watching. Thanks to Jonathan Berger and his All-Pro team for making this show go. Thanks to Tyler Korn for producing. The Skip Bayless Show returns next week. Undisputed returns August 28th.