Shaq beats on Oscar de la Hoya

Shaquille O’Neal has a new TV show called Shaq VS where he takes on top athletes in challenges that are skewed his way. Not just skewed because Shaq is a freaking giant … he also gets head starts, score handicaps, and all sorts of other things. So basically there’s very little point to these competitions past whether these athletes can outperform some random Shaq-related benchmark.

Shaquille O'Neal - Image: JR Davis via Newscom

Below you can see Shaq boxing it up with Oscar De La Hoya for an episode that will air on ABC September 8th. The week after, he’ll try to outswim lazy pothead Michael Phelps and then after that: unknown. I guess ABC wants to make sure the show doesn’t tank before ordering more episodes.

Still, if the thing doesn’t end up immediately banished to whatever hell contains Shaq-Fu and Kazaam, there’s a very good chance Shaq will do something MMA related on there. He’s been dicking around with training for a while and my bet is that his recent ‘call out’ of Brock Lesnar was an attempt to rope him onto the show.

But until he finds someone in the UFC willing to take on one of his rigged challenges, we’ll just have to settle with UFC commentator Mike Goldberg being on the show. He’s the co-host of Shaq VS, and yes! He does repeat half the same lines from UFC shows. It’s kinda surreal.