[A-List] US media: role of television

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

It's a knockout: your chance to take on Tyson

Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Friday January 17, 2003
The Guardian

Reality doesn't come much more real than being smacked in the face by Mike
Tyson, the former world heavyweight boxing champion.

Now an average Joe is to be allowed the chance to have his lights put out by
"Iron Mike" in a reality television show.

The enormous success of reality shows has prompted US entertainment
companies to look for ever more bizarre variations. The latest idea, from
Triage Entertainment, is to take a volunteer and train him up to
fight-fitness to take on the former world champ. The programmes would chart
his fitness regime and fight preparation before a final showdown.

A spokeswoman for Triage, based in Sherman Oaks, California, confirmed
yesterday that plans for a fight were under negotiation with Tyson's
management.

Tyson is at the end of an impressive career and money is now more important
to him than prestige. He agreed this week to pay his ex-wife $6.5m (£4m) in
a settlement.

He was well beaten by Lennox Lewis for the world championship last year and
is given little chance of regaining his crown. Next month he fights Clifford
Etienne in his first fight since Lewis.

The latest US reality hit is Joe Millionaire in which a guy who has
supposedly become a multi-millionaire auditions young women as potential
brides. The twist is that he is a construction worker on about $20,000 a
year, although none of the women realises this.

Competing with it is The Bachelorette in which young men try to win the hand
of a young woman who was herself the runner-up in last year's hit show, The
Bachelor.

Also showing is Celebrity Mole Hawaii in which "celebrities" compete for
money in acts of daring like jumping off a cliff into water while their
fellow contestants bet on whether they will make it.

Last year, a popular reality show was a celebrity boxing match between Paula
Jones, who accused Bill Clinton of a sexual relationship, and the former
Olympic skater Tonya Harding. But neither Jones nor Harding packed the sort
of punch that a former heavyweight champion does.