Live EventBarstool Sports Picks Central | Tuesday, December 10th, 2024Watch Now
Surviving Barstool | New Episodes Tonight, Wednesday & Thursday 8PM ETTUNE IN

Stephen A Smith Underwhelms Greatly And Makes Very Little Sense In His Response To Joe Rogan's Criticism

Ohhhhh, Stephen.

In case you missed it, following Stephen A Smith's completely ignorant and disrespectful analysis of Conor McGregor vs Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone - where he basically implied Cowboy was some random, embarrassing schmuck who folded under the bright lights in his "first pay-per-view match" (he meant first pay-per-view main event) - Joe Rogan came out and said he thought having someone so uneducated on the sport speaking about it on such a huge platform could be harmful on many levels. 

Joe said it was a bad look for the UFC, a bad look for ESPN, and an overall bad look for the sport. I (and 99% of mixed martial arts fans) wholeheartedly agree. Stephen A Smith clearly took offense to this narrative, and promised a response the second he got his eyes on it...

...but unfortunately, the reply he's taken allllllll day to formulate hasn't made his argument (or any of his points) any better.

Stephen opens his video response by bringing up how well the UFC is doing on ESPN+, and I'm pretty sure he is trying to imply that it's his doing, even though he claims that he is NOT trying to imply that it's his doing. He then brings up some of his career achievements and credentials, as if any of them have anything to do with his level of mixed martial arts knowledge, and begins to re-explain what he was originally trying to say. This time around, Stephen A Smith focuses on the point that we didn't see enough from Conor McGregor in 40 seconds for us to believe he could beat a fighter like Khabib Nurmagomedov or Jorge Masvidal - cleeearly backtracking from his fight night take of "Cowboy's a shitty quitter who gave up before the fight even started!" - but whatever. 

Finally, he closes out the three minute and thirty second video by letting Joe Rogan know that if he ever wants to talk about this in person, Stephen A would gladly entertain that. Maybe I misread his tone as he delivered the strange monologue, but it certainly sounded like some macho threatening bullshit to me - he even says "Name the time and place." 

I'm really hoping that I misread it. If not, Stephen should know that Joe could cave his skull in, snap both of his arms, and leave him in the street to die before he could say "WEEeEeEeEeEeEeEEDUH"!

Joe shouldn't respond imo. This is very clearly below him.