Chris "Mad Dog" Russo talks cocktails, gummies, and sports betting on First Take. Chris “Mad Dog” Russo talks cocktails, gummies, and sports betting on First Take. (Awful Announcing on Twitter.)
By Andrew Bucholtz on

Many people have detailed gameday plans, but the one Chris “Mad Dog” Russo laid out for Florida State-Clemson and Colorado-Oregon on ESPN’s First Take Wednesday was particularly notable. There, after Stephen A. Smith criticized him for complaining about Colorado on air and betting on them off air, Russo relayed his in-depth Saturday plan for that Colorado game. With his wife out of town, his plans involve dog-walking, cocktails, gummies, and sports betting with his bookie. Here’s the first part of that:

“I’ll get a run in, I’ll take the two dogs, Bo and Reilly, for a walk. At about 12 o’clock, I’ll sit down, make an early cocktail, cut a gummy in half, we got Florida State-Clemson, I like the Florida State quarterback, let’s do something there.”

“At about 3:25, when I’m sauced, I’m not driving anywhere, I’m in the house, 3:25, I put the call in to Fat Rob, 718-504-, I’ll put the call into Fat Rob. ‘Rob, you know what, what the hell, I can’t root for Oregon. I’ll pretend on TV. Put 10 dimes on Colorado, Colorado and Deion. Let’s play the game. So by 3:25, I’ll be sitting down in my shorts, with a t-shirt, cocktail, I’ll have the other half of the gummy.”

Russo then goes into a discussion of how it must be the Chris Fowler-Kirk Herbstreit game (it’s not), and then reveals how often Herbstreit texts him, making Smith jealous, and then talks about “I will bet the ranch, and I will go crazy for the Buffs on Saturday afternoon, but on here, I’m going to root like hell for Bo Nix.”

This then went on to Russo saying “I’m an only child, I’m my favorite company,” and to Molly Qerim mocking him for that, and to Marcus Spears saying “You legitimately just became my favorite person on this show” and giving Russo a hug.

Chris Vannini of The Athletic captured many of Spears’ facial reactions to this:

Kevin Van Valkenburg of No Laying Up turned those into a Vince McMahon meme (click through for full effect):

And Spears weighed in on this on Twitter himself:

https://twitter.com/mspears96/status/1704523159192432813

This is not the first time Russo has brought up gummies on ESPN, but there was no “This is a Disney operation!” blowback this time. And hey, they have a strategic gambling partner now, so gambling talk is far from verboten as well (although Disney would probably prefer Russo was discussing his betting with Penn instead of “Fat Rob.”) And they’ve long run alcohol commercials. (Maybe Russo needs to strike some deals for his own lines of gummies and pre-mixed cocktails.) But this was still a wild segment, even if it was just one of many on Wednesday’s First Take.

[BroBible]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz