Ravens vs. Bengals: Tom Zbikowski Wants To Hit Chad Ochocinco Hard…in the Ring

By now, everyone is familiar with the situation regarding Chad Ochocinco “lobbying” for a fight with UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva. 

Long story short, UFC president Dana White threw a playful tweet regarding Ocho fighting Silva if a new CBA agreement was not reached in the NFL.

In typical fashion, Ochocinco had no problem running with the joke from there. 

While many figured the story was just an amusing little anecdote, it began to get tons of publicity, even making the main story on ESPN.com’s MMA page. 

In all likelihood, Anderson Silva was not amused. As of this writing, he has not addressed the situation and probably never will.

If Silva can withstand months of Chael Sonnen trash talking, an NFL wide receiver calling him out doesn’t seem like it would make “The Spider” flinch.

However, the latest on this story is that a fellow NFL player feels that Ochocinco is making a mockery of combat sports with his latest publicity stunt.

Ravens safety Tom Zbikowski, an adamant boxing fan with an impressive 75-15 amateur record, as well as a Chicago Golden Gloves runner up, called out Ochocinco on the Dan Patrick Show.

Patrick asked his guest which NFL player he’d most like to face in the ring. “Tommy Z” had little problem in coming up with his answer.

“Ochocinco talks like he can box,” Zbikowski said. “I’d let it go for about 45 seconds,” Zbikowski said. “I’d let him know what a real jab feels like.”

Zbikowski, who earned his first professional boxing victory in June of 2006 in a mere 49 seconds, also confidently expressed that he “could beat any active NFL player in a boxing match.”

He did mention though, that he would not look forward to taking on defensive teammates Ray Lewis and Haloti Ngata. 

Back to Ochocinco, the charismatic wide receiver obviously did not waste much time in responding.

Equally unsurprising was the fact that Ochocinco decided to go back at Zbikowski via Twitter. 

"@tommyzbikowski you wana go nite nite, you want to box me, for 1 your feet are to slow and you’ve no hand speed to even be competitive #smh"

For those that are behind on their internet abbreviations, “smh” is short for “shaking my head.”

Zbikowski must’ve been turned off by Twitter’s 140 character limit (per tweet), since he decided to take this verbal battle to Facebook.

“Dear Ocho Cinco (I won’t call you Johnson cause you only get one name change in my book), thanks for following my career…You and me at M&T Bank Stadium, charity four-round boxing match. You wear Orange and Black and I will wear Purple and black. If we do it in May, that should give you enough time to get ready…You game?”

Ochocinco has not responded yet, but we all know he will. The million dollar question is: will he accept the challenge and finally put his money where his loud mouth is?