Bengals fans call out Tiger King over $20000 request to Joe Burrow to get out of prison - "Sounds a lot like extortion"

It is unlikely that Joe Burrow and the Tiger King, Joe Exotic, were on anyone's 2023 Bingo card for getting mired in a controversy. Such are the times we live in!

Joe Burrow, as the franchise quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals and now the highest-paid player in the league, has been referred to as the Tiger King. That name was also made famous by Joe Exotic, who inspired the Netflix series with the same name and is now a convicted felon.

Now, the felon has come out asking for the quarterback's help to raise $20,000 in order to hire lawyers, who can get him out of the 21-year prison sentence he is now serving.

Bengals fans are having none of Tiger King's letter to Joe Burrow

The letter that Joe Exotic has sent to Joe Burrow has undertones that do not make it seem like a plea for help. He writes, in part,

“I see the news, magazines, as well as yourself calling you the Tiger King. I have been the Tiger King before you got out of high school. Tiger King is my trademark and my intellectual property. How about doing a good deed and helping me raise $20,000 for a down payment to hire attorneys?”

It seems that the tone of the letter did not quite help the 'Tiger King's' case as the Bengals fans flamed him for it. Here are some of the best responses on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Other Tiger Kings and Cincinnati's love affair with the big cats

This piece of news also gives us the chance to explore a bit more about tigers and their relation to Cincinnati and its football franchise. Other people have been called the Tiger King before, notably British conservationist Jim Corbett, whose name adorns a National Park in India. The first of its kind, it made its name for providing sanctuary and protection to the Bengal tigers in the region.

It was the same animal that gave the Cincinnati Bengals its name. Its famed zoo had a Bengal tiger, after whom the original Bengals were formed in the city. When Paul Brown, after whom the Cleveland Browns are named, moved to Cincinnati following a feud with his old team, he kept the moniker as a mark of football continuity in the city.

It is why the Paycor Stadium is unofficially known as the Jungle. There have been Tiger Kings past and present, but if Joe Burrow ever wants to move away from the name, he could always call himself Tarzan as long as he is the king of his hometown arena.