May 01, 2018
Former SportsRadio 94WIP host Josh Innes is in trouble again — surprise, surprise — but at least he's not in as much trouble as the guy he's currently at war with in Houston.
Innes, who was fired from 94WIP in the summer of 2016, landed at Houston's SportsTalk 790, the archrival of his original employer before his time in Philadelphia.
Those who remember Innes' tirades against 97.5 The Fanatic's Mike Missanelli might expect him to be hurling insults at his former Houston employer. This is actually better than that. Innes has been at odds with a co-worker at his own station, afternoon host Adam Clanton.
Animosity between the two colleagues appears, at least on the surface, to be motivated by retroactively bad sports takes. Over the weekend, Clanton retweeted a reminder that it's been seven years since Innes whiffed on the Texans drafting perennial Pro Bowl defensive end J.J. Watt.
Happy 7th Anniversary, @JoshInnesShow! #HoustonTexans pic.twitter.com/9Y1ZTkTXZe
— Freezing Cold Takes (@OldTakesExposed) April 29, 2018
Innes singled out another tweet of Clanton's that was off the mark about probable NBA MVP James Harden.
James Harden = Carmelo Anthony: A stat sheet-filling loser. #Rockets
— Adam Clanton (@adamclanton) January 21, 2016
These days, Clanton has been all-in on Harden and the Rockets, especially as the team looks poised to give the Warriors a run for their money in the Western Conference playoffs. Innes thinks it's hardly a coincidence that Clanton shifted his tone after the Rockets hired him to handle studio host duties for the iHeartMedia station's coverage of the team.
You might not guess this kind of dispute would lead to anyone losing their job, but that's exactly what happened to Clanton, according to The Houston Chronicle and ClutchSports.
Sports Talk 790 dismissed Adam Clanton and suspended Josh Innes today. So we lose a guy who consistently reps Houston and is one of the voices of the #Rockets so they can continue to support a shock jock. https://t.co/5RwLxuoNX5
— ClutchFans (@clutchfans) April 30, 2018
It's not publicly known exactly what Clanton did to warrant his dismissal. Innes has been suspended for five days after a searing morning broadcast about Clanton (the audio is available via Houston Media Watch). Innes impersonated Clanton and basically ragged on him for a solid 10 minutes. Here's a snippet from the transcript:
So I wasn’t bought off by a team and then randomly become the biggest fanboy ever. Funny how that works when people who talk a big game about being hard, right? That’s like, a big thing. [Impersonating Clanton] I put on for my city. In my leather jacket. I’m so hard. I’m like Fonz, but really hard, and not from that ass place Milwaukee. Terrible fans, worst fans ever.
Remember that Innes got into a possibly staged altercation with a host from Houston's rival station during this year's Radio Row in Minneapolis, just a few days before the Eagles won Super Bowl LII. He somehow survived that mess.
Whatever Clanton did here, it must have been pretty flagrant.
