Iron Mike coos over
Date: Monday, May 30, 2005 @ 17:11:49 MDT
Topic: News
BY CELESTE KATZ
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Source: New York Daily News
Mike Tyson's favorite hobby is for the birds.
The former heavyweight champ, who has a fight coming up shortly, is turning again to his beloved flock of pigeons for focus and friendship.
Steve Lott, a former assistant manager of Tyson's, said the heavyweight "has a love, a sensational love, for the great legendary fighters," Lott said. "At the turn of the century, a lot of the fighters had birds as a hobby. What they did back then, he does to some extent now."
Tyson's prized pigeons are tumblers - birds that suffer seizures while flying so it appears they're doing somersaults in the air.
Back when Lott worked with Tyson in the 1980s, "it probably relaxed him a great deal," he said of the fighter's feathered friends. "Coming up, there was tremendous pressure on him. The birds gave him relaxation."
Brooklyn-born Tyson, 38, will face Kevin (The Clones Colossus) McBride in Washington, D.C., June 11. Tyson is hoping for a better outcome than his last bout, when British heavyweight Danny Williams knocked Iron Mike to the canvas in a four-round victory last July.
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