Frankly, Hugh Douglas version of events doesn’t quite mesh up with what I heard happened at NABJ in Orlando last year (I was there, but didn’t see the actual altercation).
Whoever you believe, Douglas is without a job and Michael Smith is still flourishing, so that gives you an idea who ESPN believe. With that being said after 11 months of silence and right before the next NABJ conference in Boston, Hugh shared his side of the story via Crossing Broad and off the record sports.
“So, Mike goes up on stage at the House of Blues. Now mind you, House of Blues has cameras, they have a digital feed all around the place. So, Mike was on stage, him and Jemele. And so I’m at the bottom of the stage, banging on the stage, I had just got there. So uh, Mike is on the stage, he’s doing his thing, he’s kind of looking at me, he’s giving me a funny look right. So, I try to go on stage, I did try to go on stage. Again, they told me I couldn’t come on stage. Fine. So I walk away.
So, Mike comes off the stage, and I walk up behind him and I’m like ‘Yo Mike, what’s going on?’ Mike puts his finger in my face and tells me ‘don’t you ever effing do that again.’ So, I laughed right, cause I laughed at first, I laughed. So I’m like ‘who is he talking to? I’m like, who is Mike?’ Cause you know Mike, Mike’s a little, he’s a little sensitive.
He says ‘don’t you ever effing do that again. And so I looked at him and I’m like ‘Mike what’s the matter?,’ and he walks away, so I walked behind him. And I’m like ‘dude, what’s going on?’ So he stopped and he’s talking to this young lady. So I walk up to Michael and I whisper in his ear. I said ‘Mike don’t you ever talk to me like that again, because I will beat your M F’ing A.’ Just like that.”
I think he is leaving a lot out of the story, but as the kids say, I am going to let him cook.