Las Vegas Weekly

February 7, 2013 · 1:28 PM

Mike Tyson’s latest combination: Upcoming memoir and a U.S. tour that sends him back to Indianapolis

By John Katsilometes

The VIP grand opening of "Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth -- Live on Stage" at MGM Grand on Saturday, April 14, 2012.

Photo: Tom Donoghue/DonoghuePhotography.com

A well-known journalist is rifling through Mike Tyson’s personal documents and interviewing figures who have known Tyson over the years, and the onetime boxing great is fine with it.

The ghostwriter of Tyson’s upcoming memoir, Larry “Ratso” Sloman, is in Las Vegas researching Tyson’s life and talking with those who have met his acquaintance over the years.

“He has been doing a lot of work organizing and categorizing documents, all dealing with Mike’s life, and he’s bringing up a lot of memories that Mike hasn’t had to deal with,” Tyson’s wife, Kiki, said Wednesday night. Sloman has been interviewing friends, colleagues, those who have known or observed the best and worst of Tyson over the years.

The author of what is to be a genuine, and riveting, tell-all tome is best known for his collaborations with Howard Stern on “Private Parts” and “Miss America.” He also crafted the bestselling “Mysterious Stranger” with illusionist David Blaine and “Scar Tissue” with Red Hot Chili Peppers vocalist Anthony Keidis. The book is due this fall.

Meantime, Tyson made an appearance on “Law & Order: SVU” on Wednesday night playing the role of a death-row inmate named Reggie Rhodes. For the role, the tattoo stretched across the left side of Tyson’s face was masked by makeup. He also appeared this morning with Katie Couric on her syndicated weekday talk show, “Katie,” which airs this afternoon at 2 on Fox 5. Up next for Tyson is the national tour of his one-man show, “Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth.”

In a wild coincidence, the tour debuts Wednesday in Indianapolis, the first time Tyson has visited the city since March 1995, when he was released from federal prison after serving three years of a six-year sentence after being convicted of raping beauty pageant contestant Desiree Washington.

Tyson has long said he is innocent of those charges, and the upcoming book is to “set the record straight,” as Kiki says. Some of the proceeds from his show at Murat Theater at Old National Center is to raise money for his Mike Tyson Cares foundation for underprivileged youth and local charities in the Indianapolis area.

“Undisputed Truth” is not scheduled to play Las Vegas, where the show originated last spring at MGM Grand’s Hollywood Theater. The earliest the production could return to town is the fall, possibly timed to the release of the book.

Over the past year and a half, Tyson has been more forthcoming about addressing his troubled past than at any time in his life. As his wife says, “He’s just in a good place right now. He’s comfortable with himself and the life he’s living.”

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.

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