Anyone who knows Shaq knows he’s set in his faves off the court too. One of the most titanic basketball centers ever can turn into a giant fanboy next to his favorite athletes, whether they’re in the ring or the octagon. Shaquille O’Neal’s reflexive switch from an easily angered giant to a cordial fan kept his rep in front of his UFC idol. The guy who has the honor of being Shaq’s favorite UFC fighter is Jon Jones. While Dana White was on The Big Podcast, they imagined what if Shaq acted like Jon Jones on the court. That was O’Neal’s cue to narrate how he almost did.

He’s mentioned this story before but it gets better in front of Jones’ boss. “I’m at the Super Bowl and [Jones] hits me so [expletive] hard in the [expletive] back.” Shaq even imitates the action and sound which shows that he was caught off guard bigtime. By his own admission, he tends to react strongly to that. But instead, “I turn around you I was like, ‘oh hey Jon how you doing buddy?”

It was so dramatic for Shaq, he had to tell it twice with extra effect and more explicitly. “What this [expletive] hit me so hard like, ‘hey, what up?’ I was like, ‘ah!’ So now I’m in fight mode. I’m about to [expletive] whoever it, is whoever it is I’m swinging. I turned around and it was Jon by himself.”

Get into a fight at Super Bowl and go down in viral infamy, the way Shaq did provoking Kanye West at Super Bowl this year. But when it was Jones, that switched Big Diesel’s fight mode to gentleman mode. “I looked and I was like, ‘oh, hey what’s up, how you doing?'”

Usually NBA players paid dearly for sneaking up on prime Shaq. The only other person who got a pass for a similar manner of greeting was Mike Tyson and it’s understandable. But Jones gets a pass because of how high he ranks among Shaq’s favorites.

The prize for scaring Shaquille O’Neal

It’s not everyday Shaq says, “But he a nasty [expletive],” with admiration. Yet that is reserved for Jon Jones. It was back in April when O’Neal appeared on Pound 4 Pound where he named his favorite combat sports stars apart from the host, Kamaru Usman.

Along with Israel Adesanya, Shaq said, “Of course, Jon ‘Bones’ Jones.” The reason is partially because Jones is among the few people, including Mike Tyson, who have managed to ‘scare’ Shaq. It’s the very Super Bowl incident when Jones both ticked off and scared Shaq and also made him an instant fan.

In the same show, Shaq described how fighters like Adesanya and Jones are the reason he loves watching MMA. So the quickest way into turning Shaq into a fan is scaring him.