The back and forth over an 18-year-old story has provided a breath of somewhat tense air during the summer doldrums before training camp. That’s to say, there isn’t a whole lot going on. So when Terrell Owens shared a story about Hugh Douglas getting in his grill and instigating a fight from 2005, it demanded an immediate response from the man accused.
Douglas, co-host on SportsRadio 94 WIP’s Midday Show, jumped right into the deep end to tell his side of the infamous tale. In it, Terrell Owens was the aggressor. The Hall of Famer started shouting obscenities at Douglas in the HydroWorx room before the two players came to blows.
“TO walked past me and said something directed towards me, so I sat there for a minute and at this point, I’m thinking this is not going to go well for me,” Douglas said on June 29. “But you know me, I’m petty. I’m not going to sit there and just let anybody say anything to me, so I went into the HydroWorx room and I said, listen you might have everybody else here scared but I’m not scared. I’m ad-libbing but I told him I’d put hands on him.”
The “language was colorful” and things went south quickly. “It was real street for five or six minutes,” said Douglas who admitted to throwing the first punch only after Terrell Owens had provoked him. Former Eagles linebacker Jeremiah Trotter was the middle man, forced into the role of peacemaker and bodyguard, and physically entered the fray in an effort to defuse the situation. Douglas explained it as such:
“When I’m getting ready to leave then TO squares up. And he’s like, you know, I’m tired of you talking stuff, what do you want to do? And at that point you know how they say stop? In this situation, what would you do? So I knew it was only a matter of time before punches were thrown. And as an older guy I’m not about to be sucker-punched by anybody. So this is where it got hilarious. I threw the first punch, missed. He threw a punch, he missed.”
“So I hear Trot say grab him, like Trot put me in the chicken wing. I was mad because I’m like, damn, Trot about to get me beat up. That’s what I’m thinking because Trot had a choke hold on me where I couldn’t get out of it, so I’m like, damn Trot you’re supposed to be my boy, and somebody grabbed TO and it was broke up, and that was it. It was fast. It happened fast.”
Terrell Owens, Hugh Douglas Remain on Speaking Terms
There is no bad blood stemming from the 2005 incident between Terrell Owens and Hugh Douglas. Both men made went on record to say that any lingering beef from that fateful day had been squashed.
“Me and TO, we don’t have any beef,” Douglas said. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for him, but he is misremembering the story because I did not instigate that.”
Terrell Owens said: “Me and Hugh, we cool now, we’ve talked about. We’ve kind of moved on or what have you. I laugh about it.”
But, before we dig a grave and bury this story for good, Douglas wanted to clear the air on one thing. Terrell Owens was “misremembering” key details about the locker-room fight which essentially started when the mercurial receiver wore a Michael Irvin jersey right after Dallas beat Philadelphia 33-10 on October 9, 2005.
Angelo Cataldi had been ripping him good on the radio, with Douglas sitting next to him in the studio, and saying Owens had “quit” on the team. Terrell Owens got wind of the comments and didn’t feel as if his teammate at the time did enough to defend him.
“I’m not defending him, but I’m not killing him,” Douglas said. “I’m not like saying I thought he quit, I’m not saying a whole lot. So whoever he talked to told him that I was saying he quit, that I was on the air talking about how he quit, not once did I ever say that this man quit because I did not believe that.
“Now was he disrespectful for wearing the Dallas Cowboys jersey? Yes, he was. I thought that was disrespectful, especially after a loss to the Dallas Cowboys. It was ridiculous.”
Photo by Andy Lewis/Icon Sportswire
