Emmanuel Acho didn’t like seeing Caleb Williams cry over what was ultimately a mild hamstring injury, and Leonard Fournette quickly came to the quarterback’s defense to spark a strange feud.
The saga began when Williams was carted off the field with tears in his eyes and a towel over his head Sunday afternoon, giving the impression the Chicago Bears quarterback had suffered a severe injury. It was later revealed that Williams would be just fine after suffering a hamstring strain with no tear, meaning his status would be evaluated on a week-to-week basis. The news was seemingly great for Williams, the NFL, the Bears and their fanbase. But Acho and other critics couldn’t get past the fact that Williams cried over what was ultimately a hamstring strain.
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“Crying on the cart fist pump is reserved for done for season or career,” Acho said of Williams on Speakeasy. “You cannot cry on a cart and walk out the stadium.”
Acho was criticized for his take, although he certainly wasn’t the only one mocking Williams for crying this past week. But in coming to Williams’ defense, Fournette still targeted Acho, challenging the Speakeasy host to a literal fight.
“Emmanuel Acho, how you gonna tell somebody how to cope with the injury? You said he’s fist pumping … I see why people don’t like you. Like you say s— for clickbait,” Fournette ranted on his 4th and South podcast. “And you know for a fact all the f*cking hard work we put in in the summertime. How can you say that, bro? Nobody wants to be hurt. Nobody wants to miss out on an opportunity to help their team win.
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“Emmanuel Acho, stop clickbaiting, bro. Stop doing that. I’m going to call Adin Ross. Boy, we gonna set up a fight. I’m going to DDT the f*ck out of you, I got to. Because why you doing this to those young guys? Stop letting this man hop on his mic and say this dumb sh*t about these young days. I’m not about to sit up there and down talk another man, especially when he’s hurt. You don’t do that, that’s weak.”
Thankfully Acho declined the fight proposal, with the 35-year-old saying he’s “too old to fight anybody.” The last thing this feud needed was Adin Ross. But Acho did have a rebuttal, questioning Fournette’s intelligence for mispronouncing his surname.
And while they didn’t agree to fight, they did agree to have a conversation, with Fournette joining Speakeasy this week. During the appearance, Fournette unloaded on Acho, questioning his education, wondering why he doesn’t call out white players with the same tenacity he does Black athletes, and discrediting him for building Speakeasy on a platform built by Shannon Sharpe.
When Acho left FS1, he took Undisputed’s old YouTube channel and its more than 2.5 million subscribers as a parting gift. And while the YouTube channel undoubtedly helped Acho give Speakeasy a massive head start, that’s not something he should be criticized for. It was a good business deal, a sort of minor media acquisition to help launch his own show. Acho may have had a head start with millions of subscribers, but the show still has to make people want to watch, and they’ve done that, regularly getting more than 100,000 views on livestreams.
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Emmanuel Acho has long been considered someone who is provocative or inflammatory with his takes. Which is part of why so many Speakeasy clips go viral. Acho similarly knew calling Williams out for being emotional would strike a nerve. He may not have known Leonard Fournette would try to fight him over the take, but he expected it to garner emotional reaction.
Acho and Fournette might not be best friends, but we’re glad they were able to talk it out. Because absolutely no one wanted to see Fournette and Acho fight, box or wrestle, and we really didn’t want to see the cheesy Paul brother-like promotional tactics that would have preceded an Adin Ross organized bout that thankfully doesn’t exist.
The post Leonard Fournette challenges Emmanuel Acho to literal fight over Caleb Williams appeared first on Awful Announcing.
