Ridiculous? This Is For The Birds

He's baaaacck...

Animal Planet has a new show entitled, "Taking on Tyson" and it's not about the Iron Mike we have come to know. It's a kinder, gentler Tyson. It's Mike Tyson, the competitive pigeon racer.

In the immortal words of Mike Tyson himself, "That's ridiculous."

"The first thing I ever loved in my life was a pigeon," he said. Legend has it that Tyson got into the boxing game at the tender age of 11 when a neighborhood bully killed one of his beloved pigeons. Now a washed up but not washed out ex-champion, Mike Tyson has taken up pigeon racing for this new chapter in his life. Cue the Rocky 5 opening sequence, where this real life story parallels the fifth installment of Stallone's Rocky story. Sort of.

Pigeon racing, which is popular on the rooftops of New York, sends pigeons out into the Pennsylvania skies, marked with electronic bracelets which time their departures and arrivals. Tyson is the fresh, tattooed, faced rookie who has a veteran pigeon racer/coach to show him the ropes, and the veterans of the sport are not one bit intimidated by this Mike Tyson.

Part docu-drama, part sport, this six part series brings Iron Mike back to his childhood roots in Brooklyn, where Tyson says there are more than a few bad memories. Clean and sober for years, Tyson seems to have found happiness amongst his beloved birds. "If I'm lucky enough to die an old man, I'm gonna have birds," Tyson says.

Which is just so ridiculous. Unless you live in Mikes world.