Shaquille O’Neal Reveals How He Won “Thousands of Dollars” at Michael Jordan’s Expense

“Everybody was scared of Michael Jordan. I was not,” Shaquille O’Neal confidently said. Michael Jordan and Shaq were dominant from the start of their careers, but they weren’t winning championships immediately. Shaq had a longer hump to get over and it wasn’t until His Airness retired that he finally won his first championship. The longtime MJ fan said on the From the Point podcast that his idol had nothing to do with his lack of titles in his early career. It was all on him. But he sure made money off of beating MJ.

One of his points of pride with the Orlando Magic, who selected him first overall in 1992, remains that he led the last team that beat the Jordan-led Bulls in a playoff game. That was when the then-3x champion came out of his first retirement and lost to Shaq and the Magic in the 1995 ECF.

“That’s why I won thousands of dollars in bets over who was the last person to beat Michael Jordan. Nobody knows ‘oh he went 6-0…’ remember the year when he came off, when he took off and came back and they played us, I’m the last guy to beat him,” O’Neal proudly boasted.

While he made a lot of money winning those odds, he also became complacent. “So after we beat him we was happy and me [Dennis] Scott, we had about 9-10 days off, we had a lot of meetings at Magic City… and it’s like, ‘bro, we beat Mike, we good, we about to make it.‘”

But that’s not how it turned out. The Houston Rockets swept O’Neal’s Magic in the Finals. Shaq said it was too soon for him anyway.”I didn’t know what it took to win a championship.”

While O’Neal has previously admitted to taking the help of Hulk Hogan to save him from Jordan, how did the two actually stack up on the court?

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Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal’s mutual intimidation

In their 21 matchups during their respective careers, ten were in the playoffs. Jordan has a total of 12 wins over O’Neal and also led him 6-4 in the postseason. After a brief baseball career, Jordan admitted he was dreading playing against the Orlando rookie who was, “the biggest person I’ve ever seen play, physically.”

Incidentally, Shaq said on Logan Paul’s podcast, “[Jordan’s] the only man that had me terrified on the court.” But that stemmed from his immense admiration watching MJ during high school.

Shaq claims he became complacent after beating Jordan. It, however, looks like that victory gave him a big confidence boost. Do you think Big Diesel was intimidated by MJ? Let us know in the comments below.

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