Ryen Russillo Laid Into A Former Agent While Explaining His ESPN Situation

The ESPN layoffs have cooled in terms of sheer volume but more and and more information continues to emerge. Word broke on Monday that the worldwide leader will be adding Adrian Wojnarowski during the summer and more names have trickled out since the initial deluge. However, Monday afternoon brought a bit of a different hue to the proceedings, as radio host Ryen Russillo came back to the air after being off for a full week and experiencing something of a topsy-turvy situation.

As part of his first show without now former co-host Danny Kanell, Russillo explained that he truly believed he was on the outs at the network, to the point where he was actively shopping for real estate in Los Angeles last week during his vacation. Beyond that, though, perhaps the most interesting tidbit of a five-minute introduction about the subject (which can be found in full here) was Russillo explaining what transpired with regard to a former agent.

For the uninitiated, there was a leak to The Hollywood Reporter in the midst of the mass layoffs that Russillo would be encountering a “reduced role” with the network and he did not take that in stride given that, well, it wasn’t true. Andrew Bucholtz of Awful Announcing brings word:

“There is one other little thing that I want to add, and that is that there was a report that I was going to have a reduced role, which meant a lot of people thought I had begged for my job back, and that I offered up less money to come back. It’s not even remotely true. I’m going to be working more, and I’m still under contract through next summer. It was planted by an agent who decides to keep messing with me, because they’re all hurt about the fact that I left them. And the thing is, I have told the nicest version of our relationship as far as my story goes with this agency. And I can only tell you just to get out of my way, and stop messing with me, because you’re going to lose, and that’s it.”

It is completely understandable that Russillo would be irate on the subject, given that his entire employment future was seemingly dangled for the entire sports media world to see. Fortunately, he seems to be ready for battle rather than shrinking from it and Russillo is one of the more respected radio professionals in the sports industry.

While the headliner may have been the bold nature of his takedown of the former agent, Russillo did also take plenty of time to pay tribute to Kanell and explain the weirdness that he went through for all of last week.

At this time, Russillo and ESPN have not announced anything publicly with regard to replacements for Kanell, though the network held something of an open tryout after Scott Van Pelt left the full-time radio airwaves to take on his late night SportsCenter venture. It will certainly be interesting to see who is paired with Ryen Russillo next but, regardless, he’ll be on the air firing away.