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Peyton Manning is one of the best quarterbacks to ever live, while Jay Glazer is one of the more respected reporters who covers the sport he played. While you might think the two of them would get along pretty well, that wasn’t the case when they almost came to blows while in Hawaii for the Pro Bowl in 2007.
The Pro Bowl has never really been appointment viewing, and while the NFL has done what it can to drum up interest for its equivalent of an All-Star Game, it will never be the kind of event most football fans will set aside some time to watch.
With that said, it does seem like a pretty good time for the players who are invited to participate in the showcase. While the NFL plans to host the next iteration in Orlando, the Pro Bowl was traditionally played at Aloha Stadium outside of Honolulu, which means players who earned the nod got the chance to cap off a long season with a long weekend in a tropical location.
It’s supposed to be a pretty enjoyable affair where guys get the chance to let down their hair (Arian Foster claims a very good chunk of participants have thrown back a few drinks before taking the field), but tensions can apparently run a bit high every now and then based on the tale concerning an altercation between Manning and Glazer.
Why Peyton Manning and Jay Glazer almost fought each other while they were Hawaii for the Pro Bowl
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It probably won’t come as a huge surprise to hear alcohol played a role in the two men almost coming to blows, as it occurred in the wake of a Mai Tai competition involving Glazer, Sean Payton, Eddie George, Lorenzo Neal, and Tiki and Ronde Barber.
However, there were also a couple of notable names who are linked with what unfolded: current 49ers GM John Lynch and Hall of Fame defensive end Michael Strahan.
Lynch was the reason that a formidable crew assembled for the drinking contest in the first place. In the years prior, the nine-time Pro Bowler decided to have a competition with himself and eventually put up Wade Boggs Numbers by crushing 34 Mai Tais in a single day.
Well, Glazer apparently decided that record needed to be broken, so he assembled a squad to head to a bar a 9 AM to get an early start in the hopes of surpassing Lynch’s mark.
They apparently spent around eight hours throwing back cocktails until things started to die down, and Glazer and Co. eventually relocated to a nearby lounge where the reporter was planning to meet up with UFC legend Chuck Liddell (the broadcaster may primarily cover the NFL, but he’s an MMA fan who not only trains football players in the offseason but has a charity that connects fighters with combat veterans).
Glazer was minding his own business when Peyton Manning walked into the room. While it’s unclear if he had been drinking prior to that point, he did ask the reporter if he could hook him up with a Bud Light, and after Glazer decided to mess with him by pretending he couldn’t understand him, the QB then made a somewhat random comment about Strahan begging him for media coverage.
However, that didn’t sit well with Glazer, who considered himself one of Strahan’s good friends and somehow interpreted the remark as a reference to the DE’s recent divorce. From there, things escalated fairly quickly:
“I just kind of snapped on him. I won’t tell you what we said but a couple of them pulled me away from him…My buddy jumped in for me and my buddy was Chuck Liddell. So all of a sudden his friend was like ‘Whoop’ and walked over here.
Then Peyton’s like Oh my God.'”
Peyton claims Chuck threw a kick at his head, although Glazer denies that was actually the case. There were some more harsh words thrown at each other (like “little b****” and other somewhat incendiary remarks), but the two were separated before moving on.
Glazer said he and Manning linked back up shortly after to sort things out, and it doesn’t seem like there are still any hard feelings between the two of them. With that said, you have to love stories like this that remind us famous people are also humans who get into drunken fights with their pals after day drinking like the rest of us.