Please give us at least 40 more years of Mike Tyson. The first 44 have been awesome. We need this guy around. The last three Tyson stories included an alleged beatdown of a papparazzi at LAX, an appearance on Italian Dancing With The Stars and rumors of a return fight against Evander Holyfield. They were all smokescreens for “Iron” Mike’s latest endeavor, a show on Animal Planet.
“Mike Tyson and Animal Planet? They don’t seem to go together, do they?” said Tyson. According to the N.Y. Post, the former heavyweight champ owns “a few hundred birds” at lofts in New Jersey and Brooklyn.
The Birdman of Boxing will be racing pigeons on his new Animal Planet show, “Taking on Tyson.”
Tyson’s love of birds started as a preteen when he would care for the birds kept by the older kids in his Brooklyn neighborhood.
“I couldn’t fly them off the roof,” he explains. “Big kids would come and steal them.”
And it was the birds that steered him to boxing, he says now.
“I never hurt anybody until somebody hurt one of my birds,” Tyson says.
Pigeon racing is actually big business involving some pretty heavy wagering on races that can span as much as 500 miles. This video claims people have been racing pigeons since 1150 and that the birds fly at speeds up to 60 MPH.
Back in 2007, Tyson showed off his one of pigeon coops on the Jimmy Kimmel Show. During the appearance, “Uncle Frank” said Tyson owned 1700 birds.
For more info check out the website for the American Racing Pigeon Union.
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