Mike Tyson will show off his lifelong obsession with pigeons in a new reality soap airing on Animal Planet. Take on Tyson, set for early next year, pits the ferocious fighter and his birds against the best professional pigeon racers in New York.

“I may have stopped fighting,” says the former heavyweight boxing champ. “But I never stopped flying birds. It’s my first love. I am a little worried about the sitcom effect. Mike Tyson and Animal Planet? They don’t seem to go together, do they?”

Mike has been caring for pigeons since he was about 10 or 11, but has never raced the creatures. These days, Mike owns “a few hundred birds” in two lofts outside Manhattan.

Taking on Tyson begins shooting next month in Mike’s native Brooklyn.