It flew under the radar this week, but Stephen A. Smith and Shannon Sharpe had their first public meeting since the Hall of Fame tight end was dumped from ESPN after a legal controversy.
It happened in Las Vegas at the Canelo Alvarez-Terence Crawford superfight. And it was captured by Sharpe’s podcast partner Chad Johnson.
In a video posted to social media from ringside, the former First Take colleagues are seen sharing a few moments together, although it’s hard to determine exactly what the content or context might be. And Johnson only attached a praying hands emoji to the video, leading to educated guesses about what could possibly be transpiring.
Stephen A. Smith is no stranger to viral confrontations caught on film. In the most recent NBA season, he went face-to-face with LeBron James during a timeout at a Los Angeles Lakers game, which led to a media firestorm and the escalation of a full-blown feud between the two.
But Smith addressed the situation on his podcast earlier this week, saying that it is not what happened with Sharpe, even after he was unceremoniously removed from First Take following his legal and personal troubles.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Shannon Sharpe was getting on me because I promised him I would have a six pack by now and I don’t,” Smith said. “And he knew I was eating Crunch Berries and Honeycombs. That’s what happened, ladies and gentlemen. That’s what happened.”
“These people, I mean, I’m just waiting. What’s next? You understand? If I drink some tea and I belch that’s going to be back page news too, the man was getting on me for eating Crunch Berries. But nobody said, ‘he was confronted, he was confronted.’ I’m just saying all this to say I’m lied on a lot,” he added.
At this point, it’s unclear exactly what reaction Smith is talking about. There are no Google News results relating to their Las Vegas meeting, no headlines about confrontations, and even the quote tweets of the Johnson video don’t have anything that stands out. It’s peculiar that Smith even felt the need to address this at all, unless there was something that had crossed his path regarding his relationship with Sharpe that had gone unseen by the masses.
Ironically, the most notable person to call it a confrontation is former ESPN star Marcellus Wiley, who broke down the video and body language between the two in great detail on his YouTube page well after Smith gave his side of the story. Wiley claimed to have seen something more than Crunch Berries in the conversation.
Even professional lip readers would struggle, but it almost appears as if Stephen A. Smith is suggesting that Shannon Sharpe say something to his face. Maybe that is about breakfast cereal, who knows? But between this and Smith’s cryptic monologue following Molly Qerim’s abrupt resignation, it’s been a strange week for ESPN’s highest-paid talent.
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