Metta Sandiford-Artest Gives His Thoughts on How ‘The Malice at the Palace’ Started

On today's Pardon My Take... METTA SANDIFORD-ARTEST! The man formerly known as Metta World Peace and Ron Artest joined Mr. Cat and Mr. Commenter to discuss his career in the NBA, mental health, playing with Kobe, and much more. When you think of notable moments in Metta Sandiford-Artest's career, the Malice at the Palice will most likely come to mind. It is probably the most memorable brawl in American sports history, and Metta Sandiford-Artest was one of the main people involved in that fight. On today's show, he gave an interesting perspective to how the fans played a role in that series of unfortunate events: 

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Mr. Cat: So, you've been in the news recently, too, because you had the Netflix Untold Story Malice at the Palace come out. What has been the response from that? Because I would imagine after watching it, have people come up to you and been like, "Hey man, I'm sorry that, you know, it was spun in a certain way?" Or, you know, it was obviously an unfortunate event, but it's crazy now to finally get the full truth from everyone's perspective who was involved.

Metta Sandiford-Artest: Yeah, I mean, it was interesting because when it happened, I pretty much, you know, took it on the chin and I just said, "You know what? "If I'm not going to be able to play, I'm just gonna move on with my life, and that's it." You know, but I for sure wasn't going to... I didn't want to beat myself up, you know, for something that I didn't do. You know what I'm saying? I mean, something that I didn't start. So I just moved on and I didn't really care what anybody thought about it, you know, or I didn't care what anybody thought about me. But then years later, you see the full story. I was OK with taking the blame or playing my part and taking the blame for my part. But I wasn't OK with taking the full blame. You know, I wasn't OK with that.

Mr. Cat: Yeah, it's also kind of crazy, in today's, like, we've seen some incidents, especially in the NBA. There was, you know, someone throwing popcorn, someone spitting, someone yelling at [Westbrook], and the response is very different now. It's like, the fans have no right to do this. You've got to protect the players, and again, obviously the players had a part in The Malice at the Palace, but the fans were fucking unruly and crazy as well.

Metta Sandiford-Artest: I mean, it started with a fan, like people can say Ben Wallace started it. Ben Wallace had nothing to do with The Malice at the Palace, you know what I'm saying? Ben Wallace, that happens all the time, where a player fights a player. The fans started the Malice in the Palace. And you know what? I'm OK with taking the blame because, you know, everybody made a ton of money since then. You know, the league, if you look at since then and they say it's a black eye, it's not the black eye, the real black eye honestly is, like, when they didn't let black people play in the NBA, like, that's a black eye.

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Metta Sandiford-Artest: You can't say I was like a black eye, I didn't even start... you know, your best argument is the year before that, when I led the league in flagrants and technical fouls. Like, that's OK, I'll take that part, you know, and I'll also take like, you know, doing wild stuff and being detrimental to my team. Yeah, that's stuff that I did, you know? But The Malice in the Palace, it just doesn't make sense to me that, you know, that they say, I started that then, you know, the next day I lose all my deals, you know, and I was a high level player. I don't get the same contracts as people as my skill level was getting, you know, I couldn't even get another corporate deal, so I had to come up with my own corporations, you know, just to be involved in corporate America. You know, this is ridiculous. I had to build to C corps just to be involved in corporate America. You know, with the exception of a few other companies that I'm working with. And, you know, it was hard, because typically athletes, you know, they play well and they get deals, and that wasn't the case over here.

I definitely see what Metta Sandiford-Artest is saying here. When you think "Malice at the Palace," he is probably the first name that comes to your mind. Not any of the other players, and not any of the fans who threw things at him and ran onto the court. It's interesting to hear his perspective on that night and the aftermath of everything that unfolded, too. This was an awesome interview on today's show, be sure to check it out.