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Charles Barkley is the king of sports entertainment, as the current TNT hoops analyst and Basketball Hall of Famer is always willing to make people laugh while speaking his mind about whatever pops into his head. For more than 20 years, fans have been #blessed at seeing Chuck on TV — and, during this time of postponed sports, it’s time to revisit one of the most classic Barkley stories ever.
The year was 2002, and Charles Barkley had been with the NBA on TNT squad for the past couple of seasons after retiring from the league, teaming him up with Kenny Smith and host Ernie Johnson. With the Houston Rockets selecting Yao Ming first overall in the 2002 NBA Draft, Barkley didn’t have much faith that his former team would have success with the behemoth big man, leading to Sir Charles even predicting that Yao wouldn’t score much in the NBA.
That proclamation went even further, though, as Barkley told Kenny Smith that he would “kiss his ass” if Yao Ming scored 19 points in a game in his rookie season. However, a few weeks later, Charles would be forced to eat crow, because the No. 1 overall pick in that year’s draft dropped 20 against a Shaq-less Los Angeles Lakers‘ squad — and this is where the fun really begins.
After Ming’s offensive “explosion” against the Lakers, Smith brought out a donkey for Charles Barkley to kiss, telling him that this was the ass he was going to have to kiss. The entire video below shows the hilarity, which, oddly enough, happened with wrestling legend and then Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura sat alongside the crew. Take a look.
Man, the early-2000s were a weird time, right? As messed up as things are these days with this global pandemic floating around — forcing us all into self-isolation and social distancing — the fact that one of the greatest basketball players ever was kissing a donkey’s ass on TV is even more strange.
To help give even more details about this wild story, Kenny Smith recently talked about the bet (and tons of other stuff) with BroBible’s own Connor Toole, which is a hilarious read. Make sure to check it out.
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