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| Osi Umenyiora |
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| Lawrence Taylor |
New York Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora offered to buy and return Lawrence Taylor's Super Bowl XXV ring to the Pro Football Hall of Famer, but only if Umenyiora attained 500,000 Twitter followers by 10 p.m. Saturday.
Umenyiora, relatively new to the social media site, had roughly 54,600 followers as of 10 p.m. Saturday, falling quite short of the threshold needed to fulfill his promise to purchase the ring being auctioned off by Taylor's son, Lawrence Taylor, Jr., and SCP Auctions.As of approximately 10:15 p.m. Saturday, there were 29 bids on the ring and the current bid was $174,546.
The auction began Thursday and was scheduled to end Saturday night. A new release estimated the ring to be be worth between $75,0000 and $100,000.
Taylor's agent, Mark Lepselter, previously told FoxSports.com that the linebacker was unaware his son was auctioning off the ring, but was fine with his son's choice. Taylor gave the ring to his son as a gift, according to the addendum on the bidding site.
"L.T is a football LEGEND! If 1,000,000 people support him getting his ring back, then its worth it to me to buy it and give it back to him," Umenyiora wrote earlier Saturday before amending the request
to 500,000 followers.Umenyiora, who wrote that he has only met Taylor once, also tweeted he would let a random follower present the ring to Taylor.
When asked by one follower why he couldn't just buy the ring straight up for Taylor, Umenyiora wrote: "Honestly, because i dont know him. If im going to spend that kind of money, it will be because people love him and show it."
The ring has two football-shaped diamonds and 17 smaller diamonds. "Taylor" is written above a Giants helmet and "56," Taylor's number, appears below the helmet. It also has "Giants World Champions" written on it.
The ring is accompanied with two letters of provenance, one from Taylor and one from his son, to verify that it is indeed the Super Bowl ring.
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