Chad Ochocinco Walks the Walk, Rides Bull for 1.5 Seconds

While it's likely not news at this point to anyone with any interest in this story, but "Super Dave" Ochocinco, formerly Chad Johnson of the Cincinnati Bengals, went through with his bizarre attempt to ride a bull at the Lucas Oil Invitational in Duluth, GA. He didn't last very long, getting tossed almost immediately out of the gate, making it 1.5 seconds and nearly getting trampled by the back legs of the bucking bull as he scrambled to find the safety of the side rail.

Say what you will about Chad, a guy who's pretty easy to write off as a clown at this point as his professional football career tanks and his Twitter personality career flourishes, but that dude's got a pair. A ginormous pair. As one of his Twitter followers commented: "Hope you're carrying your balls in a wheelbarrow!You earned it just for following through and making the ride!" At least Chad can now counter Marvin Lewis's claim that he never follows through with anything.

The stunt grew out of Ochocinco's inane challenge of professional bull riding star Valdiron de Oliveira through his Twitter account earlier this week. The Professional Bull Riders' chief operating officer Sean Gleason quickly and cleverly extended an offer to Chad to have a go in an exhibition at the event at the Gwinnett Center. Momentum escalated throughout the week as publicity for the stunt grew and speculation mounted about what lengths Chad would go to in making a fool out of himself. Earlier today we got the impression that he might be wising up to the absurdity of his endeavor, having shown some chinks in his armor of bravado, like his tweet to former NFL defensive lineman Warren Sapp:

While running your mouth off on Twitter and challenging one of the top bull riders in the world while never having attempted the sport before is clearly a foolish thing to do, Ochocinco at least followed through with his talk, garnering the respect of his trainer and champion rodeo cowboy Ty Murray:

When asked if his stunt presented a major risk to his career (what there is of it at this point), Ochocinco waxed philosophic.

"No, every down is a risk to my career," he said. "Every time I wake up in the morning there's a risk to life in general. You never know what's going to happen. One of the things about me is I'm extremely interesting, I'm unpredictable and I am willing to do anything."

Very true. Say what you will about Chad (and yes, there's lots to say), the man has put together a remarkable life for himself. He's played at a high level in the NFL, raced a horse for charity, appeared on a televised dance competition, tried out with a professional soccer team, gained a following of 2 million people on his Twitter account, and has now ridden a bull at a professional bull riders event. Yes, he can be annoying in so many ways, but Chad really is an interesting person, so kudos to him. 

It's kind of a shame though that Chad wasn't able to make it the full eight seconds. It would have been fun to watch the response to his renaming the bull Marvin Lewis. Maybe we'd finally see that cage match.