The Firing Of Chad 'Ochocinco' Johnson, Caught On Video And Zaprudered

The Firing Of Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson, Caught On Video And Zaprudered

By Sean Pendergast Thu., Aug. 16 2012 at 6:00 AM

Chad is confused by events

As promised in my Monday post wrapping up the previous weekend, a weekend that saw Dolphins wide receiver Chad ~~Ochocinco~~ Johnson become former Dolphins wide receiver Chad ~~Ochocinco~~ Johnson, I did tune in to Hard Knocks on Tuesday night to watch Johnson's final episode on the show.

As I watched the first twenty minutes or so of the one-hour program, it felt a little like watching a rerun of the Beverly Hills, 90210 episode where Dylan's wife Toni was viciously murdered in the final few minutes of the show. (Oops, do I need to scream "SPOILER ALERT!" on a program from nearly 20 years ago?)

I mean, for nearly the entire episode of Hard Knocks, Johnson is playfully gallivanting around the practice field, the innocence of a kid's game quite evident, but the whole time I knew...I knew that in the final five minutes...BOOM!! It was coming.

So I pondered how it might all go down. How would Chad Johnson be written out of the Hard Knocks script? Would he leave quietly to study abroad? Would he die in a fiery car crash with no body found, allowing him to possibly return with amnesia in 2013?

Unfortunately, Hard Knocks is not a soap opera (as best I can tell, at least), so it went down in a much more subdued, yet highly Zapruder-able fashion. Let's take a look and then break down the highlights, shall we?

0:05 -- Blended shot of Chad Johnson exiting some sort of minivan and entering the building with a shot of Joe Philbin sitting at what looks to be the receptionist's desk talking to someone, listing all of Johnson's missteps since signing with the Dolphins in June. Philbin lists the transgressions:

1. An incident this summer where he was "tweeting stuff he shouldn't have been"
2. Press conference where he goes off on a tirade "F this and F that"
3. And now "this thing"

"This thing" would be the incident from this past weekend when Johnson got into a domestic spat with his new bride, reality TV star Evelyn Lozada, over a receipt for a box of condoms. Somewhere during that spat, depending on who you believe, either Johnson head-butted his wife or she head-butted him. The one thing we do know is that if Lozada delivered the head butt, she needs more practice as she sustained a three-inch gash on her forehead.

0:34 -- Philbin: "When things are good, they're good, but when they're bad, he can be a tad...well, ya know**..."

** ya-KNOW: adj. 1. mental; 2. insane; 3. idiotic; 4. narcissistic; 5. not worth it

0:38 -- Johnson walks down the hall to Philbin's office, in the process walking past pictures and watercolor paintings of Dolphin legends like Csonka, Kiick, Marino, and Griese, all of whom I'm fairly sure made it through their first two weeks of camp without a spousal abuse incident.

0:47 -- My favorite part of this whole clip is Johnson's attire -- goofy t-shirt, pajama bottoms, and bedroom slippers. It's almost as if the Dolphins picked him up mob-style at the end of his driveway while he was grabbing the morning paper, telling him "Chad, you better come wit' us. The skipper needs to see ya..." Seriously, this is a meeting with your boss where presumably there's a great chance of you getting fired, so you wear slippers? God, that is awesome.

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patrickmarty

@SeanCablinasian Loved it! We'll always have Chad's epic advice about changing up your stroke. #championslearnhere

stephennaron

@SeanCablinasian hey man: only you could deliver a terrific ochocinco post, only to have it turn into feminism 101 in the comments. Ha!

SeanCablinasian

@stephennaron How about that? My powers are so warped right now!

richardstbernard

Broadcasting the firing of an employee is an obscenity.

richardstbernard

It is most unfortunate that so many journalists instinctively take the woman's side in any domestic violence case. Any clown can observe fights between partners that occur in public spaces (e.g.most often in "low rent" neighborhoods). The woman is usually at least as culpable as the man.There is plenty of academic research on cases where the woman hits first and hits often, but as long as she ends up with the more obvious injusy, law enforcement arrests the man. In other words, it's ok for women to fight, but not ok for a man to win the fight. Feminism has reduced men to punching bags.

H_e_x

@richardstbernard You are everyone's alcoholic, redneck, dumbass uncle who sends them pictures of Obama dressed like an African tribesman.

richardstbernard

@H_e_x

You are a tool of the culture, without an original thought in your head.

H_e_x

@richardstbernard Can I be a sprocket instead? I prefer the retro-futuristic feel of them.

Blake

@richardstbernard "Feminism has reduced men to punching bags."

I'm sure there are cases where guys get screwed by the system. And domestic violence does go both ways. But this is a reductive, idiotic statement. Cops and prosecutors are all feminists now? Feminism is interested in allowing anyone - man or woman - to get assaulted by a partner? If a woman is abusing a man and a man gets in trouble for it, that is awful. But I'd love to see you explain how that's feminism's fault.

Your characterization of domestic violence also sounds like you think it's mostly just misunderstandings in which women beat up on guys, then guys get in trouble. You're either a jackass with serious misconceptions about abuse (which, again, can go both ways), or you need to work on communicating your ideas. Or - just stop talking entirely! It'll be like an early Christmas present for anyone who has to be around you.

I'd actually like to see some of this "academic research" you cite, but don't actually cite. And what you say you've observed on your anthropological expeditions to poor neighborhoods doesn't count for shit.

If trolling, 6/10. Tired topic but convincing execution.

richardstbernard

@Blake

If you were old enough, smart enough, or sufficiently knowledgeable about feminist literature, you might realize how completely the State and society (including most men) have been re-shaped during the last 50 years in the manner demanded and prescribed by feminists in the 1960s and 70s. And feminists have literally written the legal theories, and policy and training manuals for state and local police and prosecutors across the country.

Martin S. Fiebert of the Department of Psychology at California State University, Long Beach, has compiled an annotated bibliography of research relating to spousal abuse by women of men. This bibliography, which lists 214 empirical studies and 61 reviews and/or analyses, provides evidence that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 365,000. In a Los Angeles Times article about male victims of domestic violence, Fiebert suggests that "...the consensus in the field is that women are as likely as men to strike their partner but that—as expected—women are more likely to be injured than men."