Charles Barkley and Skip Bayless already exchange jabs from afar, maybe they should start doing it every morning on national TV.
As FS1’s Undisputed prepares to return on Aug. 28 in the wake of Shannon Sharpe’s departure, Skip Bayless knows who he wants to be his next debate partner.
“Charles Barkley would be my dream partner for Undisputed.” — @RealSkipBayless pic.twitter.com/vVBTdLFHmd
— The Skip Bayless Show (@SkipBaylessShow) July 6, 2023
“Charles Barkley would be my dream debate partner on Undisputed,” the Fox Sports host said on the latest episode of The Skip Bayless Show. “I would dive out of bed every morning out here in Los Angeles at two o’clock in the morning to get to work with Charles. Please, Charles, please come and please work with me, this ‘damn idiot.’ What a joy it would be to do battle every day with Charles Barkley live on television.”
Barkley has said he’s looking to work less now that he’s 60 years old. Although since claiming he wants to reduce his workload, Barkley has flirted with LIV Golf about a broadcasting role, signed a 10-year contract with Warner Bros. Discovery to continue on TNT’s Inside the NBA, and agreed to do a weekly show for CNN.
Maybe it’s not realistic that Barkley would want to wake up every day at 2:00am to yell about Michael Jordan versus LeBron James. But Bayless is recruiting so hard that he offered to pay Barkley’s salary if the NBA analyst would be willing to join him on Undisputed.
“I could semi-retire. I could mail it in. I could, dare I say, actually have a life and forget about prepping so furiously hard,” Bayless said. “I’d have to do is let Charles go first and listen to him make a fool out of himself…I wouldn’t even have to try. So please, please, please, Charles, come be this damn idiot’s debate partner. Please let me annihilate you on a daily basis. Let me make barbecue chicken out of you.”
So that’s why Bayless thinks it would be a “joy” to work with Barkley on Undisputed. It’s not because he believes Barkley is a talented TV personality, it’s because Bayless thinks he could embarrass the basketball Hall-of-Famer in the debate ring.
Bayless’s latest quip comes in response to Barkley subtly calling the Undisputed host a “damn idiot” while referencing Shannon Sharpe’s buyout from Fox Sports. Barkley has taken shots at Bayless for decades, repeatedly expressing his hatred for the hot take artist. That, at a minimum, could make for loud television, if not interesting.
With Sharpe officially gone from Undisputed, Bayless is in search of his next full-time debate partner. LeSean McCoy, Keyshawn Johnson and Max Kellerman have been mentioned as possible replacements. One thing that seems certain, however, is it won’t be Charles Barkley landing on Undisputed. No matter how many times Bayless says “please, please, please.”
