6 A.M. With... The Hot-Take Champ

As he enters his 70s, Skip Bayless, cohost of Fox Sports’ Skip and Shannon: Undisputed, ensures he’s ready to keep up with every pro who appears on his show (including LeBron).

- By Spenser Mestel

Skip Bayless hates commercial breaks-especially right now. He's two minutes into a five-minute plank, the final exercise in his workout, and he needs something to distract him from the burn.

Most mornings, that means there's a prerecorded sports game on his iPhone-except that game has just cut to commercial. So Bayless refocuses himself by remembering his reason for working out in the first place. He's in the gym at Fox Studios in Los Angeles at 5:30 today not just to build muscle. At 70 years old, he's also here to forge mental strength, which is what he needs in order to hold his own on Undisputed, the Fox Sports debate show he cohosts every weekday morning.

His job: verbal jousting with NFL Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe on the sports topics of the day. Every conversation is supposed to be combative. (It makes for good TV.) "It's relentlessly intense, because we're trying to win," Bayless says as he squeezes his abs a bit tighter in his plank, "and win to the point of embarrassing your opponent." (Because that makes for good TV, too.)

Each episode of Undisputed is filmed live, starting at 6:30 A.M. and running for two and a half hours. Bayless and Sharpe discuss a boatload of subjects, everything from NFL free agency to the latest star on the LPGA Tour. So Bayless must have knowledge of every sport, and if he doesn't know something, he must sound confident enough on air to hold viewers' attention.