How Low Can Bowe Go? Ridiculous Riddick Bowe Sells Out on Twitter

He made a fortune boxing, but, of course, with shitty managers and promoters, Riddick Bowe is just another ex-champ chump.

At 47, he's reduced to...no, not quite GoFundMe...but selling himself at the low-ball figure of $20 a Tweet.

Yes, Paypal him $20 and he'll say whatever you want. With a half-million subscribers (which isn't to say that even 10,000 of them actually read him or know how to read), Bowe figures he has some kind of penny-ante business.

And he does. For a while. Perhaps for a few weeks he might average $100 a day. It's not gonna last long.

Soon people will be bored because everyone will know "he'll Tweet anything for $20." Or, because more interesting D-listers will offer competition.

If you're any kind of fan, or especially if you're NOT, at the moment you can amuse yourself and you friends by making an ex-heavyweight champ Tweet for you.

Once it's Tweeted, it's official. He "said" it, in essence. Which is why some cruel and obnoxious idiot shows off a Tweet where Bowe "admits" he's not as tough as Joe Jerk. It's also easy for a crappy company or bogus charity to make money by claiming to be "endorsed" by him. Not bad for a lousy $20 investment.

As more and more people discover that he's a media whore who'll anything for $20, who knows what ridiculous things Riddick will be "saying" on Twitter...before everyone gets Bowe-bored.

Celebrities have discovered that people don't want autographs anymore. They want "selfies." It's no longer, "sign this piece of paper for me," it's "let me pose with you."

Now, instead of paying $20 to get a celebrity's autograph at a memorabilia show, people would rather pay for an official "Tweet!"

Ironically enough, I met Riddick Bowe at a street fair, where he was signing free photos. It was a more "old fashioned" promo geared to meeting a star in person, rather than some kind of cyber-scam.

To get folks to visit a mile-long fucking street fair, the promoters had a rotating bunch of D-list celebs at a "give-away booth." If you were lucky, and stood in line at the right time, you might meet a local TV personality, disc jockey, oldies singer or ex-athlete. Bowe was paid a fee to show up for a half hour, and sign a stack of pix. He could take as long as he liked talking to fans, and then leave. Did he end up getting "paid" an average of $20 per photo? $10?

All I knew was that I wouldn't mind having one, and to express my thanks for some thrilling fights. I had no idea he was going to be there, but I easily thought of something to say that would show I was a real fan, and not just an opportunist. (The average person wouldn't, for example, know the name of his flamboyantly idiotic manager during his heyday, Rock Newman).

He smiled and seemed to appreciate the fact that I was not going to sell the photo on eBay, and that I knew his career. But oddly enough, as he handed me the photo he said, "So how much are you paying me?"

I'm not so sure he was joking. Maybe he was encouraging tips. I really didn't know what to say. When I didn't say anything, he didn't press the point.

A few other celebs were signing pix and nobody asked, even in jest, for money.

Maybe he wanted payment for enduring one too many truly idiot encounters with "fans." At least I wasn't one to say something like "Gee, the most famous fight of yours that I remember was when you kept getting hit in the nuts by "The Foul Pole" Andrew Golota."

That was some fight. Golota was disqualified, one of Bowe's men flattened Bowe's ancient trainer Lou Duva (who had to be removed on a stretcher) and the crowd went nuts and started rioting. George Foreman had to shield his fellow HBO announcers while sorrowfully telling people to please stop throwing chairs.

Bowe and Golota fought a rematch, and after decking Bowe but getting knocked down himself, Golota decided to once again resort to low blows in order to be disqualified rather than getting KO'd.

Aside from the two fights with Golota, Bowe's real fame was in his trilogy with Evander Holyfield. He won two of them. Yet, despite Bowe's excellent record (the one loss to Holyfield was his ONLY loss), Bowe has been forgotten. He's barely on any boxing fan's list of Top 10 heavyweights, and back in 2005 declared bankruptcy.

That anyone would even pay $20 to have him Tweet something is more an act of charity or foolishness than anything else. The only thing more idiotic would be to pay twenty pounds for a Tweet from Herbie Hide or Audley Harrison. But this is, as at least one Brit puts it, why the "21st century is shite." The strangest, most pathetic ways of making money via the Internet are the norm now. Let's make chump change via Spotify, via hot links on blogs, via YouTube music thefts, via selling used knickers and doctored celebrity Photoshop porn in the "adult" section of eBay, and via GoFundMe and Kickstarter and...TWITTER.