Sunday, December 3, 2017

On The Air: Skip & Shannon: Undisputed (2016)

Fox Sports 1 lured long time Dallas Morning News columnist Skip Bayless away from ESPN and Howard Cosell wanna-be Stephen A. Smith last year. The end result? Bayless now has to share a 2 1/2 hour mid-morning show with ex-NFLer Shannon Sharpe (ex-The NFL Today).

Skip & Shannon: Undisputed is bloated because FS1 wants to 1-up ESPN's First Take, where Smith is routinely being clowned and taken to school by new partner Max Kellerman. Sharpe has learned how to improve his communicative skills since leaving CBS, since he came off as being a little too marble-mouthed on Sunday afternoons. However, he has the same problem as Smith does. Smith was a basketball beat reporter for ESPN before being allowed to pretend he could host a talk show, much less emulate his idol, Cosell. Smith has routinely been exposed as being ignorant about other sports besides basketball. Sharpe comes from the NFL (Ravens, Broncos), but can be seen looking at his notes on other sports subjects, so that it looks like he legitimately is prepared to talk about basketball. Since I'm usually at work when the show is on, I wouldn't know if he similarly is prepared for boxing, UFC, etc..

Anyway, in this clip from Nov. 30, Skip & Shannon discuss Wednesday's Lakers-Warriors game....



Unfortunately, the Fred Sanford of stage dads, Lavar Ball, has made appearances on the show, as well as on other FS1 shows and ESPN, unwilling to dissolve the delusion that he believes his son, Lonzo, is better than Golden State's Stephen Curry. All he's doing is adding more pressure to his son. Not good.

I made the note about Sharpe having his notes before him. I haven't seen Screamin' A. with notes in front of him too often. He should be Lavar's manager. They deserve each other.

Rating: B.

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