It was the end of an era this week when Shannon Sharpe officially ended his time across the table from Skip Bayless on FS1’s Undisputed.
It was also the end of a “marriage,” according to Bayless.
In a move that had been previously announced, Sharpe gave an emotional farewell to the show and his co-host on Tuesday, tearing up as he explained what it has meant to him.
Shannon tears up as he thanks Skip pic.twitter.com/Xja5ld7XqL
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 13, 2023
“Skip Bayless, you fought for me, bro. I’m here because of you. You allowed me to share the stage with you. You allowed me to share the platform. I’m gonna cry in the car, but I’m not gonna cry now,” Sharpe said as he began to cry. “The opportunity that you gave me to become what I became, I’m forever indebted to you, I’ll never forget what you did for me. You helped me grow, more than you’ll ever know.”
Bayless thanked Sharpe for his hard work and for being a “worthy adversary.” He shared more insight into how he felt about the breakup on this week’s episode of his podcast, The Skip Bayless Show, saying that Tuesday’s show was essentially the dissolution of a “marriage.”
“In a way, Shannon and I were kind of a married couple on TV,” said Bayless. “I did not watch a single game of any sport in any magnitude for 7 years without thinking about what Shannon was thinking about the outcome of said game and how that outcome would impact tomorrow’s Undisputed.”
Like many marriages, Bayless said that theirs always seemed to come back to the same arguments over and over again.
“The biggest advantage Shannon brought to FS1 and to Undisputed was he truly, genuinely, authentically loves LeBron James,” said Bayless. “He honestly and completely and wholeheartedly believes LeBron is the GOAT, eclipsing even Michael Jordan. That of course is insane. LeBron is obviously nothing more than the phony GOAT. But, because Shannon so believed that LeBron was the best ever, he and I had TV gold.
“My other advantage with Shannon was that like most people who don’t bleed metallic blue as I do, he absolutely despises all things Dallas Cowboys. Once again, we had an extremely natural disagreement…I have no objectivity and sometimes no sense when it comes to my Dallas Cowboys…I’m going to miss my Cowboys displays with Shannon.”
Of course, the marriage between Sharpe and Bayless wasn’t always pretty. The duo engaged in several on-air blowups, most infamous after Sharpe returned from no-showing in the wake of Bayless’s untimely tweet about Damar Hamlin.
