Mike Tyson recently suited up to battle an opponent of a different sort: a shark. He did it for Shark Week, Discovery Channel’s long-running week of programming that is everything sharky. It could be argued that it’s not necessarily a good thing (oh, and has it ever been argued), but Discovery is after ratings and Shark Week drags in the ratings. People love sharks, and that’s why Shark Week has been a cultural phenomenon for over three decades.
It might not be the epitome of “educational programming”, but we’d wager education is secondary after seeing Shark Week titles like Megalodon: The Monster Shark That Lives. Obviously, the megalodon does not live, because it died out some 3.6 million years ago. But whatever. Views!
Enter Iron Mike. The folks over at Discovery, after creating such masterpieces as Zombie Sharks – which was just an hour-long show about how sharks sleep with their eyes open — figured what better way to bring in those views like promoting a fight between Mike Tyson and a shark? Tyson vs. Jaws: Rumble on the Reef, they called it, which leads me to suspect someone over at the WSL has been taking notes on what to call an event.
Now, I don’t think anyone actually expected Mike Tyson to actually fight a shark. God help you if you did. And of course, he didn’t, because that would be dumb and cruel and Mike Tyson likely would have had his ass handed to him. Instead, they threw Tyson down there in a chainmail suit and told him about tonic immobility, which involves no punching whatsoever. It’s a reflex that makes certain animals go into a sort of hypnotic state, and it can be induced in sharks and certain ray by giving the animal a little tickle on the snout, where there are tiny sensory pores.
Still, though, Tyson was nervous, because he was down there in a “literal tornado of sharks,” attempting to tickle one on the nose.
“I didn’t really experience fear until I came to the Bahamas,” he said from the stern of the boat. “I was really scared, I was nervous, I was apprehensive about even doing this stuff. But I was disciplined enough to go through the process and I overcame that.”
