Shannon Shape vs Skip Bayless beef: Revisiting love-hate relationship between 'Undisputed' analysts

Before Shannon Sharpe, Hall-of-Fame tight end and famously boisterous sports commentator/analyst, leaves Undisputed and Fox Sports, he has made it clear that he has no hard feelings towards Skip Bayless.

Since it launched in 2016 ahead of the NFL season, Undisputed has been one of the highlights of FS1's programming slate, with Sharpe and Bayless famous for their on-air banter over various topics in football and basketball.

Lately, though, their relationship hit new lows, especially after Bayless sent this tweet as Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin lay unconscious during a Monday Night Football game against the Cincinnati Bengals, and Sharpe called him out for it:

The two have had disagreements before, but none this bad. They eventually reconciled, as Sharpe later told Chris "Mad Dog" Russo on Sirius XM:

“I wasn’t willing to throw the two months that Skip and I, we disagreed a lot, sometimes I think things went over the line. I didn’t want that, and so I appreciate everything Skip had done for me.

"Bringing me there, giving me an opportunity to show that I was more than a football player. I could talk about more in the sports world than just football. So, I wasn’t willing to throw that away. Skip and I just needed to get into a room and talk, and calmer heads prevailed.”

He also clarified what he wanted to happen between him and his co-host:

“The thing that I conveyed to Skip is that, ‘Look, we can disagree, but I want the color between the lines. I don’t want the disagreements to go outside of the lines.'”

While their on-screen chemistry has bettered, they are still not close offscreen, as Sharpe told Adam Schein:

"He doesn’t know what I’m thinking, and he doesn’t know what I’m going to say. I don’t know what he’s thinking, and I don’t know what he’s gonna say.

"So, I think it helps us television-wise. It might have hurt our personal relationship, but I definitely think it’s helped our on-air relationship."

It also helps (or hurts?) that Bayless is not a fan of LeBron James, whom Sharpe is very close with, especially since the 19-time All-Star joined the Los Angeles Lakers, whom the Hall-of-Famer has been a fan of recently.

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Skip Bayless on his relationship with Stephen A. Smith

Sharpe is not the only notable personality Bayless has worked (and disagreed) with. Until 2016, he hosted the very popular ESPN series First Take with Stephen A. Smith. Smith credits Bayless with its turnaround when he joined in 2012:

"Skip Bayless comes to me in a parking lot. He says, 'I know you've got your plans; you love the NBA; you love being out on the road; you love being in the locker room. But I need you. I've done all that I could do to take this as far as I could go, I need you to do this for me, please.'"

However, Bayless has a different view on First Take's success, casting doubt on why the show needed saving when it was already successful to begin with:

"How can you save and make a show that was already as big a billion to one success story as ESPN had ever seen? The ratings and revenue were impossibly great when Stephen A. joined me in 2012. With Stephen A. as my partner, 'First Take' would never touch the NFL Monday ratings that it hit in 2011, pre-Stephen A."