CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- When Terrell Owens gave his Hall of Fame speech on Saturday, there seemed to be two major themes. 

The first theme had to do with giving thanks. During his nearly 40-minute speech, Owens spent roughly 35 minutes thanking anyone and everyone who helped pave his path to the Hall of Fame. As for that second theme, well, let's just say he was finally able to take out 15 years of frustration on the one entity he didn't really seem to get along with during his career: The media. 

During his speech, Owens spent a solid five minutes talking about his decision to skip out on the ceremonies in Canton and his reasoning mostly had to do with the fact that he believes the Hall of Fame selection process is flawed. (Hall of Famers are selected by a committee made up of 48 media members). 

In a press conference after his speech, Owens actually gave details on why he's had such a disdain for the media over the course of his career. T.O. said his relationship with the media started to sour almost as soon as his career began. 

"When I gave interviews early on in my career, I didn't understand what politics were, I didn't understand what being politically correct was," Owens said. "My intentions -- as far as my answers -- they were pure. I didn't understand that whatever I was saying as it related to that question, that it could affect how they spin it. They made it seem like I was throwing somebody under the bus."

According to Owens, the media would take his honest answers and misconstrue them, although Owens did admit that he didn't always think about the consequences of his answers. 

"When they asked me about what happened in the course of the game, I answered honestly, not really thinking about the aftereffect," Owens said. "They misinterpreted what my answers were. That's when they started to misconstrue a lot of things. It was a hard battle."

From the sound of it, Owens would have loved if something like Twitter would have existed during his career so he could clear up all the confusion about his reputation. (Twitter didn't really go mainstream until after Owens was out of football). 

"I think now, with a social media platform, guys realize that they have a voice," Owens said. "They can combat some of the things that are being said in the media."

For most of his career, Owens was characterized as a diva with a me-first attitude who divided locker rooms, and every time he tried to combat that reputation, something would go wrong. 

"Back then, I thought I was doing that when I would do an interview or a special piece to try and explain some of these things, but that's the power of editing," Owens said. "They slice and they edited an hour and a half interview into five or 10 minutes. They never saw the entire clip, so everybody that watched TV thought that I was really, whatever [the media] said I was while assessing whatever it was in that interview."

Of course, in what might go down as the greatest irony in NFL history, Owens said that his distaste for the media was part of what sparked him to eventually become a Hall of Fame receiver. 

"It started to irk me. I played with a chip on my shoulder," Owens said of the negative media coverage. "I told myself, 'The only thing that I can control is the way that I play' and I did that. I understood that if I played poorly, that was going to validate what they were saying about me, but I had a sense of mind to know that if I went out there and controlled my ability and played to the best of my ability, there was nothing they could say."

Playing with the chip on his shoulder, Owens eventually finished his career with more receiving yards (15,934) than anyone in NFL history not named Jerry Rice. 

"They can talk about me as bad as they want to, but that's why I played with that chip on my shoulder, that's why I played with a lot of pride," Owens said. 

One thing that seemed to bother Owens is that other players weren't treated the same way. Although there were plenty of other boisterous players during his career -- Randy Moss and Chad Johnson would probably qualify -- Owens said no one was really subject to the same amount of negative coverage that he always seemed subjected too. 

"You've seen, over the course of the years, even when I played, guys have done equally the same thing, they've been demonstrative, equally, the same, and it's viewed very, very differently from when I did it, " Owens said. 

According to Owens, his negative relationship with the media became full circle when they used his reputation as a bad teammate to keep him out of the Hall of Fame for two years. Owens' numbers suggest he should've been a first-ballot Hall of Famer -- and his numbers are the only thing that should have been taken into consideration during the the selection process -- but Owens feels he had to wait three years because the media held a "grudge" against him. 

"I took it personal and for whatever reasons the writers chose to hold a grudge for a number of years and they used that against me when it came time to vote me into the Hall of Fame," Owens said. "As I said, the system is in place, the criteria is in place, the by-laws are in place, but when it came to me, they overlooked my body of work, they overlooked my accomplishments and the narrative that I was a bad teammate, they took that and ran with it."

Owens also added that the media just didn't know how to characterize him. 

"My passion often got misconstrued as being arrogant," Owens said.

With his induction on Saturday, Owens became the first living Hall of Famer not to attend the enshrinement ceremony in Canton, and he's completely fine with that. 

"I don't have any regret doing what I'm doing today," Owens said. 

Like his career, Owens did things his way on Saturday, which is probably why he was the only Hall of Famer who held a press conference with a giant tub of popcorn in front of him. 

For more highlights on T.O.'s big day in Tennessee, be sure to click here.