Ad Disclosure
Corny Flyers Hater Andrew Fillipponi Fake Quits Pittsburgh Sports Talk Radio After Steelers Draft Drew Allar
By Matt Schultz
Published:
In today’s attention economy, where the goal of so many is to merely get people to look at them rather than to say something interesting, you’re inevitably going to come across stuff on your timeline that makes you say out loud to no one in particular: “This guy… This is not my kind of guy.”
This is the reaction we at Crossing Broad had when we saw this tweet from Flyers-hating Pittsburgh sports radio guy Anthony Filliponi:
The feeling only intensified while reading Poni’s follow-up tweets, in which he tries drumming up some drama or interest in his fake resignation:
For the uninitiated, the backstory of this tweet and pretend-quit is as follows: Last year, Poni said that he would quit his job if the Steelers drafted Penn State quarterback Drew Allar:
To Poni’s dismay, the Steelers did exactly that. It’s safe to assume that Poni was hoping his loyal listeners had long forgotten the vow he took – but he found out, rather harshly, that all of his hoping was for naught. The other day, a caller let him know that his promise to quit is remembered, and is expected to be kept — and the guy nobly didn’t relent when Poni pushed back with some defensive, nonsense logic:
PONI: “I also didn’t specify what job.”
CALLER: “Okay, what job are you quitting then?”
PONI: “I don’t know.”
CALLER: “…So you’re a liar, correct?”
PONI: “No, cause it was not 250 days later.”
The hell is Poni talking about? I respect the caller and his refusal to back off, because the guy is in the right: Poni said he would quit if the Steelers took Allar. They took Allar. And Poni has the audacity to raise his voice to the caller? To try out lame excuses like, “I didn’t specify what job?” To bring his weird nipples into this? And then, on top of everything else, to challenge this caller to a fight, saying he’ll meet him out front of the radio station at two o’clock?
Despicable. Disgusting. An embarrassment. And it seems that even Poni himself knows all of this was an embarrassment, because just a few hours after this confrontation, the radio host released a statement saying he was quitting his job at the station. Which, of course, is a fake, lame gimmick –
“[Quitting] is the decision that I’m making, and I’m at peace with it.”
The entire situation is truly a sad state of affairs. If Poni has any respect for himself, the city of Pittsburgh, and the sports fans he seems to troll in order to make a living, he really would quit his job. He would delete his Twitter. He would throw his laptop into all 3 rivers. If this man had even a shred of personal integrity, he would leave Pittsburgh today, never to return. He would begin walking in any direction with nothing but the shirt on his back and the hoops on his nipples, and spend the rest of his days as an exile, a wanderer, a citizen of nowhere without a place to call home – never to be heard from in public again.
But we all know he’ll be back on the radio tomorrow. The coward…
UPDATE: He’s back on the air right now. Couldn’t even commit to the joke for a full afternoon. Almost feel bad for Pittsburgh fans that this is their guy. The cowardice is off the charts… –
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…)