Mike Tyson’s reality show “Taking on Tyson,” debuts on March 6th and should be considered “Must See TV”, because in reality anything that has Tyson in it should be watched intently.
I have said this many times, but the fact Tyson is not dead, in prison or penniless is amazing to me. He is having a renaissance and appears he will age gracefully into a comfortable life.
He spoke with ESPN about his new show and a few other topics. Here are the highlights.
A lot of people don’t like pigeons — they call them “rats with wings.” What do you say to people who don’t get it when it comes to pigeons?
We call ’em rats, too. But people who don’t like pigeons, that’s just because they don’t understand ’em. Just like when Europeans first came here and they didn’t understand the Indians. What we don’t understand, we hate and want to destroy. People don’t know that pigeons have saved thousands of American troops during times of war.
You’ve bred and looked after pigeons before, but you’ve never raced them until now, right?
Correct, I’ve never raced them before. I had friends who raced their birds, and sometimes I’d go on a long run with them, but I never really had racing birds of my own.
How come?
It’s a lot of work! I like to just be up on the roof feeding my birds, and while I’m doing that I can talk on the phone, be lazy, eat food, all of that. But if you have racing birds, you don’t have time for all of that because you have to take the birds out, fly them here, wait for them. It’s time-consuming.
See, that’s work — racing homers is a lot of work. If you don’t race them, that’s more of a fat man’s sport. See, the racing guys, they really ought to be skinny ’cause they work so damn hard. The rest of us, we just sit on the roof, lay back and eat food while we watch the birds fly.
As an animal lover who’s had some experience with the penitentiary system, what’s your feeling about Michael Vick?
What about him?
Well, some people feel very strongly about him, like they’ll never forgive him. Others say he’s done his time and deserves a second chance.
Listen, listen. I don’t know why people do what they do. What should we do with Michael Vick? Really, really: Why don’t we castrate him? Why don’t we do something bad to his children to teach him a lesson? Is that really the answer?
Or instead, we can say, “Hey, you’ve been given the wrong signals all these years, and you didn’t realize you were destroying God’s animals.” So we have to change his way of thinking. Not kill him, not assassinate him. We have to kill his way of thinking in that particular area. So yes, we should give him another chance. And so far he’s taken great advantage of it.
That is one of the best answers about Michael Vick’s situation that I have heard to date.
When they do the Mike Tyson biopic in like twenty years it will be epic, it will that generation Ali. I don’t think there has been a more fascinating athlete I have covered in my lifetime.
I will also tell you this even though Tyson has been retired for awhile and didn’t go out on top, he is still a very scary individual in person, you always have that uneasy feeling that he could snap at any time and just start punching people just because.
Now that I have scared you half to death be sure to set your DVRs.
