They didn’t just make fun of him, Dick explicitly directed his viewers to go after Maddox’s sponsors. One of the recurring topics in the early episodes was how many sponsors they’d gotten to drop him.

I don’t remember who shot first. It doesn’t really matter. According to Maddox, on the rare occasion he’s spoken about it, Dick and Asterios were doing the exact same thing to him, getting him kicked out of venues over his edgy jokes. I believe him.

They were both playing politics and trying to professionally outmaneuver one another. The only mistake Maddox made in that respect was not being consistent with his PR game. He let Dick control the narrative and suggest that it was one sided when that wasn’t true.