It seems Mike Tyson has some similarities with the boxer character actor Marlon Brando played in 1954 movie On The Waterfront, with both sharing a love for pigeons.
Tyson, 44, the self-styled "baddest man on the planet", is to be featured in a six-part series on the Animal Planet channel, and his fascination with pigeons brings to mind Terry Malloy, the character that earned Brando an Oscar.
Like Brando's character, Tyson has long raised pigeons, starting where he grew up in a tough part of Brooklyn, New York, and both found solace in the raising of birds from the rooftops of New Jersey.
Tyson now keeps his birds at another rooftop coop in New Jersey, next to the gym where he trained for fights, and he still spends hours at a time watching his pets, saying they gave him comfort during his turbulent life.
In the show that will be broadcast from March 6, Tyson will describe how he threw his first punch at the age of 10 when a bully killed one of his birds.
"The reason for the fight was because the guy ripped the head off my pigeon. This was the first thing I ever loved in my life, the pigeon," the Telegraph quoted him as saying.
"I don't know why, I feel ridiculous just trying to explain it. They're so much like people.
"This ain't no hobby, I've been dedicated to pigeons, even when I have been fighting or getting locked up. What I love about the pigeon is their loyalty," he stated.
