14 DAY TRIAL // Former boxing champ will be the star of an upcoming reality show, so far tentatively called “Taking on Tyson.” Hosted on Animal Planet, the series will see Tyson, a longtime lover of pigeons, try his hand at pigeon racing by going against others who do this for a living. In a somewhat expected move, PETA has expressed doubts concerning the appropriateness of the idea, as PopEater informs.
Tyson, it would seem, has been raising pigeons for most of his adult life and is the proud owner of hundreds of such birds. However, he’s never had a go at pigeon racing, which is precisely why the upcoming reality show should be appealing to fans, because it would see the former champ in a light they’ve never seen him in before. Moreover, the new series would also offer an insight into his personal life, even further than the documentary “Tyson” did.
“PETA worries a new Animal Planet show featuring Mike Tyson racing pigeons will ‘showcase cruelty and profiteering at animals’ expense,’ the animal rights organization’s president, Ingrid Newkirk, tells PopEater. The program, tentatively titled ‘Taking on Tyson,’ is set to begin filming in New York City this spring and is slated to air in early 2011. ‘I may have stopped fighting,’ the one-time world heavyweight champion tells the New York Post, ‘but I never stopped flying birds. It’s my first love. I feel a great pride acting as an official representative for all the pigeon fanciers out there’,” PopEater writes.
Still, PETA doesn’t feel that Tyson should be a representative for “pigeon fanciers” in the first place. “One wonders whether Mike Tyson – as a self-appointed ambassador of and ‘rookie’ to pigeon racing – realizes that just as losing racehorses end up in the glue factory, these gentle, loyal birds who race their hearts out in order to get home to their life mates often become lost in storms or have their necks wrung for failing to beat their competitors’ time. Animal Planet needs more programs like ‘Whale Wars’ and ‘Animal Cops’ in which people go to bat for animals and fewer programs that showcase cruelty and profiteering at animals’ expense,” PETA states.
At the same time, Animal Planet president Marjorie Kaplan insists that neither PETA nor Tyson’s fans have anything to worry about as regards the new show. The boxing champ, as also noted above, has been raising birds for many years and knows his way around them. Moreover, his first fight ever as a child was in defense of the birds, Kaplan points out.