It's a Knockout: Your Chance to Take on Tyson

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.