Shannon Sharpe Called Stephen A. Smith ‘Skip’ Twice During His ‘First Take’

Shannon Sharpe made his ESPN and First Take debut on Monday morning. Things got off to a weird start as Sharpe and his new debate partner Stephen A. Smith re-enacted a scene from Forrest Gump, but the true highlight came a few minutes later when Sharpe called Stephen A., “Skip.”

“Yes, because you think about it the Lions were picked to win that division Skip… Skip. Oh, boy. I’m sorry. STEPHEN A.!”

The consummate teammate, Stephen A. jumped in to say it was OK and the show moved on, but man, what a beautiful, dumb moment for sports media nerds. Sharpe, in his very first appearance on ESPN called the network’s biggest star by the name of a former ESPN employee and Smith’s old debate partner.

Even better, Sharpe did it again later in the show.

It’s kind of like if two people got divorced and one of them married a new person and then those people got divorced and the new person went and married the original ex of their ex and called them by their common ex’s name on the honeymoon. Yeah, that makes sense.

Considering Sharpe spent years debating Bayless on FS1 this was bound to happen eventually. Call it a Freudian Skip if you will. Let’s just hope we get another angle showing Stephen A. Smith’s reactions to similar incidents in the future.