Mike Tyson’s life and career has been an exercise in harnessing. As a fighter, Tyson’s inherent rage was harnessed by Cus D’Amato, who molded him into the youngest undisputed heavyweight champ in history. Today, it’s a matter of harnessing Tyson’s freewheeling oratory, while molding a stage show at an underground comedy club on the Strip.
Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth, Tyson’s foray into the arena of autobiographical monologue, returns to MGM Grand at Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club this week. The show premieres March 3 and runs Thursday to Sunday through June 26.
Tyson says prepping for the cozy confines of Garrett’s comedy club, which seats 250, is like stepping back in the ring. Except that he makes the rules and there is no defined opponent. “It’s the same thing as boxing—it’s combat,” Tyson says while sitting on a sofa in producer Adam Steck’s office in Green Valley. “But I am fighting myself, and if I don’t entertain these people, I fail. I lose.”
Tyson’s show debuted at the MGM Grand in March 2012, in the venue then known as Hollywood Theatre (now David Copperfield Theater). From there, it made the uncommon Vegas-to-Broadway trek, debuting at Longacre Theatre in August 2012. Broadway heavyweight James L. Nederlander produced that version of the show and Spike Lee directed, and Steck is quick to remind that it’s the first (and so far, only) production conceived and premiered in Las Vegas to be performed on Broadway.
A 36-show national tour and an HBO special in November 2013 followed, and Tyson has since performed in Australia and Europe (though the leg of that run through the United Kingdom was canceled because immigration officials declined Tyson’s entry into the country for his felony criminal record in the States). What Tyson has found is a thus-far insatiable appetite from fans to learn of his fascinating life and career.
“Let’s face it,” he says, in characteristic candor. “I’m a thug. I’ve been an animal, at times. People want to hear from me about what it’s like to be me.”
Though there’s video planned in the show, the chief draw is the physical presence of Tyson, who’s in great physical shape (and has ditched his experiment with a fully vegan diet, saying, “It really ain’t that healthy”). The theater seats just 250, about 500 fewer than the Copperfield theater, and the selling point of this show is that you can really feel Tyson’s intensity. “I like it intimate, I like to feel the crowd,” Tyson says. “When Brad showed me the room, he said, ‘Look at this stage, too small?’ And I said, ‘No, let’s do it.’ The smaller the stage, the better I am.”
He’s a fascinating individual to face. The simple question, “How are you, Mike?” is never benign. “I’m good, but to be honest with you, I am not mentally straight right now,” he says. “We just moved, and it’s crazy. Really crazy. We moved four houses down, because we liked the house there. But we had to move everything.”
This is the same neighborhood in Seven Hills where Tyson has kept his hundred or so pigeons, an 8,149-square-foot manse whose sales price was $2.5 million. That’s a lotta autograph shows, folks.
Tyson’s stage show marks a return to the partnership he and his wife, Kiki (who keeps all the trains running on time, trust me), forged previously with Steck’s SPI Entertainment company. Garrett is the lease holder, and continues to stage his comedy lineups and also emcee the shows about once a month. It’s an unlikely alliance, the stocky former heavyweight and the comic lightning rod who stands 6-foot-8 and seems to have to duck to perform on his own stage.
“Brad is a very direct guy, and a very smooth guy,” Tyson says. “He’s a funny guy, too.” Tyson has said he has his own stand-up material, what he calls the “Whoa!” mental list of one-liners, to use if need be. “A ‘whoa’ moment is when the prompter goes out,” Tyson says, laughing. “Believe me, I have had some ‘whoa’ moments out there.”
Tyson anticipates a mix of improv and scripted material. He, Kiki and Steck continue to develop a spine of a script in the production. Anything off-limits in this show? Not a chance. In the past Tyson has previously, almost eagerly, addressed his 1991 rape conviction; his battles with drug addiction; the death of his 4-year-old daughter, Exodus, in a home accident in 2009; and the night he bit Evander Holyfield’s ears in the ring in 1997.
“If it goes well, it goes well. If it doesn’t, we’ll change it,” Tyson says. “It really depends on how it plays with the crowd. Whatever they like, I’ll do.”
Tyson is the star, same as any other Vegas headliner. “I talked to Shirley MacLaine one time about this, and she told me that Sammy Davis Jr. wanted to die onstage,” Tyson says. “I want to die onstage. I am that kind of guy. I want to entertain people until I die. That’s all I know how to do. That’s what people know me for. When I think of that, I go, ‘Yeah. That’s okay.’”
Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth Thursday-Sunday, 10 p.m., $260. Brad Garrett Comedy Club, 866-740-7711.
