As if 2020 couldn’t get anymore batshit insane, it’s been revealed that, for whatever reason, boxer Mike Tyson is set to take on a Great White as part of Discovery Channel’s Shark Week programming lineup in the US.
After last year’s Shark Week celeb cameo saw decorated Olympian Michael Phelps race against a virtual shark, this year the Discovery Channel have stepped up their game after announcing that 54-year-old Tyson would be going head-to-head with the apex predator for a Shark Week special called Tyson vs. Jaws: Rumble on the Reef.
“With famed ring announcer Michael Buffer calling the shots, these two heavyweights will square off underwater, where Mike Tyson will try to score a TKO over the massive shark. All in the name of research,” a Discovery Channel announcement read.
It also said Tyson “will combine the best of science and technology to capture the secret lives of sharks taking viewers where cameras have never been before.” They added: “No sharks were harmed (or bitten) in the making of this episode.”
The former heavyweight champion apparently spent a week-and-a-half in the Bahamas training to go face-to-face with the Great White while being helped out by Paul de Gelder, an Australian Navy diver who lost and arm and a leg in a 2009 shark attack.
“I said, ‘Listen, this is not a good time to make me feel confident in there, seeing this guy who’s got an arm and a leg missing,’” Tyson said.
And if you’re wondering what sort of training prepares you to fight a shark, apparently, it includes practising in a pool using an animatronic shark and descending underwater in a cage.
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“I was more nervous in the cage than I was outside the cage,” Tyson said. “It’s so claustrophobic in there. But it got easier and the desire to do it more overcame me as well. After I went down the first couple of times I didn’t have that fear.”
When it came to crunch time, the boxer admitted it was a frightening experience.
“I was scared all the way through and was just trying to get through it alive,” Tyson told The Post. “I’m a scary guy but not when it comes to adventurous stuff.”
“One shark kept bumping me and I’m like, ‘What the hell do you want?’”
After leaving the cage, Tyson was able to touch a shark with his bare hands using “tonic immobility,” where its nose is rubbed until it falls into a state of natural paralysis.
“That was fun,” he said after the dive. “I was looking forward to that. [The shark] felt like one big muscle. It was so powerful.
“I was looking forward to meeting a tiger shark but he never showed up,” he says. Maybe it was scared of “Iron Mike’s” fierce reputation. “I would like to believe that,” he added.
The challenge comes as he prepares to make a boxing comeback for charity, 15 years on from his last fight.
Check out Mike Tyson in Tyson vs. Jaws Rumble on the Reef:
