Wednesday’s edition of Nightcap with Chad Johnson and Shannon Sharpe quickly turned tumultuous when James Harrison made an appearance on the show to discuss his scheduled MMA fight with his former AFC North rival.
For context, Johnson and Harrison, who had plenty of battles in the NFL over the years, were scheduled to fight in an exhibition MMA fight that was supposed to take place on the same weekend as Super Bowl LIX.
Since the fight was agreed upon back in October, very little information has been revealed about the scheduled fight. On Wednesday, Harrison detailed why that is during a live appearance on Nightcap at Radio Row ahead of Super Bowl LIX, outlining how he was still recovering from a full meniscus repair on one of his knees. This caused him to “get fat” in his words, which he is still working back into shape from.
“I’m not gonna lie to you, this is what happened,” said Harrison. “I got fat. I was like 308. My knee was messed up. I was there, six weeks, couldn’t move. So I was just sitting there eating. I knew I was real fat because I went to go tie my shoe and my stomach got in the way. And I had to move my leg to the side to get down there. So yeah.”
Later on in the show, the discussion would shift to how the canceled fight would go down between the two. Naturally, both got quite animated when describing how they would beat the other.
“It ain’t about no money. Pay me right now and I’ll beat the breaks off his ass,” said Harrison.
“Who?” replied Johnson.
“You,” said Harrison.
“You are talking about breaks. This ain’t no car,” added Johnson.
Shannon Sharpe, who could clearly tell that tensions were rising, then attempted to sell the two on waiting to fight until it is rescheduled with sponsors and advertising behind it.
“What we’re gonna do is get advertising and sponsors,” added Sharpe.
Despite Sharpe’s best efforts, Harrison and Ochocinco would continue to jaw back and forth for nearly five more minutes about who would win a potential MMA fight.
“He ain’t conditioned like I am,” Johnson later added. “He gonna be tired in two seconds. He’s gonna try and throw a punch… Stop saying he is gonna grab me. Stop saying that before I hit you in your mouth. Don’t say that no more. Because y’all disrespecting me. I don’t like that. People look at size and they determine wins and losses based off size. You saw David and Goliath right? You remember that story right? You remember what happened?”
“Neither one of us are David and Goliath,” replied Harrison.
“This ain’t no joke,” said Johnson. “Y’all take my life for a joke. This ain’t no joke. On my kids I’m gonna f*** you up. I put that on my kids. You know I don’t play about my kids. I got 200 of them. I’m gonna show you in the octagon I’m good.
“Listen man, I accept my lord and savior,” added Harrison. “This past year I was baptized. What you about to make me do is go totally outside of what I said I was going to do. Listen man, I think I might… I’ve been trying to hold this thing inside of me for a long time. Ever since I got fined by Roger Goodell for $75,000, I’ve been wanting to kill somebody. I think you might be the person I do it to.”
While there were some laughs shared between the two throughout Harrison’s appearance, you can tell based solely on the inflection of both of their voices that things quickly turned very serious.
It’s still unclear when a potential fight will happen between Harrison and Johnson. But based solely on Wednesday’s edition of Nightcap, it sure sounds like it will be rescheduled at some point soon.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.