Bryan Babcock's Update

Last night on The Fine Print: We're Calling B.S. we talked about the situation between Chad Johnson and Evelyn Lozada. Did everyone catch last night's episode? Well if you didn’t:

Chad Johnson, who has been Chad “Ochocinco”since his legal and oh-so-random name change in 2008, proposed to Evelyn Lozada of Basketball Wives fame in 2010 after only 4 months of dating. How did he propose to her? He proposed WHILE he was playing a video game called “Call of Duty” which is all fighting and shooting. Romantic, huh? But he did lay a 10-carat ring on her, so I’m sure that made her more forgiving. Their relationship has been the hot topic on the last couple seasons of Basketball Wives. One of the most famous moments was when Chad and Evelyn were having a conversation about fidelity. Evelyn basically tells Chad that if he wants to have sex with someone else, go buy a box of condoms and be honest with her. Well, this dysfunctional pair moved forward with wedding plans, even amidst numerous rumors and arguments of Chad cheating. At least one somewhat intelligent move: they had a pre-nup. They wed on July 4, 2012, the tale of which was to be aired on their own reality show, Ev and Ocho. Well, lo and behold, on August 11, 2012, just 39 days after the wedding, Chad was arrested for misdemeanor domestic violence charges. Apparently, Evelyn found a receipt for a box of condoms and confronted Chad about it. Somehow a scuffle ensued and Chad is alleged to have head butted Evelyn in the face. A bleeding Evelyn went to a neighbor’s apartment where the neighbor called the police and told the dispatch how Evelyn was bleeding. On August 14, 2012, Evelyn filed for a divorce.

Now are you all caught up about the discussion last night? At the time I did not want to get into too much detail on my opinion of the situation (The show is only supposed to be an hour in length.). I did state to the public that I would post the longer version of my thoughts on our blog. Well, here it goes … I hope you’re ready for the mayhem.

From a domestic violence perspective, I'd venture to say whatever happened to Evelyn she probably had coming. I am not advocating for abuse AT ALL. I am, however, stating that karma is a bitch … and so is she. We have witnessed for a few seasons Evelyn's violent and outrageous tendencies. We have seen a woman who gets aggressively angry at the flip of the switch. I am hard pressed to rush to her defense in any situation when the violence has been turned on her. It's hard to sympathize with a victim who is usually the aggressor. It’s more of a comeuppance of sorts.

More than that, let's look at the violence that occurred. Chad Johnson "head butted" Evelyn. Stop for a minute and think about this. A man who takes on 250lb brick walls as a career head butted Evelyn (who is 5ft tall if she's that) and she lived to stumble to a neighbor. Let's be realistic here: if Chad did that to Evelyn, she would not have survived to tell the story. I sense some fabrication here. I'm not saying his head did not make contact with her head. I am saying that the story does not plausibly play out the way she told it. And her history of telling the facts is a bit murky at best. From a lawyer standpoint, I just don't see what she is saying as fully credible. My thoughts are she got too big for her britches, attacked a man for doing exactly what she instructed him to do, and in the struggle to get her off of him, his head made contact. Chad is typically the guy who laughs at everything negative towards him; now all of a sudden he head butts someone for coming at him? It all just doesn’t play out as completely correct.

So what did happen? I don't know, nor do I want to know. Neither Evelyn nor Chad is on my list of priorities. Nor is their situation a case to take up for domestic violence. If I were either one of them I'd probably beat the other. That’s not an example to say abuse is wrong. So we all need to pack up that incident, admit both of them are sorry, and both are getting their comeuppance for their actions. They deserve each other, and this was a good example that they should be their own island and the rest of us can stay out of it.

Now, we also looked at this relationship from a marriage standpoint. First, after 4 months of dating you get what you get in a marriage. You can’t expect to be prepared to enter into a lifetime contract after 4 months. The problem is no one thinks of the marital contract as lifelong anymore. It’s until I don’t like you anymore do we part, not death.

These two never stopped to think about who they were marrying. Chad bought a trophy gold-digger wife; Evelyn got paid for her services. That was the arrangement, and it could have been easily solved by Evelyn becoming a call girl. It would have accomplished the same thing. But to arrange such a business under the guise of a marriage is disgusting and an abomination of the marital structure. Again, these two get what they deserve here.

So despite people’s immediate reactions to the situation there are four things everyone should take from the situation: 1) You reap what you sow; 2) Marriage is a sacred institution not to be violated; 3) Never EVER hit a man if you aren’t willing to get hit back …EVER!; 4) Who gives a f**k about Chad Johnson and Evelyn Lozada?

Any questions? … Questions?? …Okay.