It's the most remarkable sports personality makeover since George Foreman transformed himself from a muscled monosyllabic mummy-like knockout monster who destroyed Joe Frazier in two rounds to a jolly talk-show raconteur and super-heavyweight champion grill salesman.
Mike Tyson, once upon a time boxing's enfant terrible (high-pitched lisp and all) who became the youngest heavyweight champion at 20 but soon after was seemingly consumed by appetites gross and unchecked, is now a wise-cracking, clean-and-sober vegan entertainer who specializes in one subject: himself.
"Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth" recently was a limited-run one-man Broadway show, directed by Spike Lee, that HBO first broadcast last week and continues to rerun.
It's interesting, a fascinating spectacle, no doubt about that. But it's also redundant, irrelevant and disingenuous.
Nearly all of the ground gone over in Tyson's one-man show was covered in "Tyson," an acclaimed documentary first released in the United States in 2009, directed by James Toback (and produced by NBA star Carmelo Anthony, among others). In it, a mostly dazed and bitter Tyson holds forth on his large fame and larger infamy, and it includes a vituperative, misogynistic rant against Desiree Washington, the woman who accused him of rape, for which he was convicted and served three years in prison.
In his one-man show, Tyson even acknowledges the redundancy early on, but then goes on to claim that much of what he said in Toback's film was under the influence of drugs and alcohol and that now he no longer puts those poisons (nor meat) in his body. Now, he says, he's reformed and in complete control.
But he says the same things in "Undisputed Truth" that he said in "Tyson," only now he's animated and engaging and aware, no mere interview subject but a genuine showman spinning his "truth" his way. And with the imprimaturs of a more famous director and a big-time cable network, no less. As his former promoter might say: Only in America.
About his rape conviction, this time around he's nearly laconic, but hardly forthcoming. After briefly blaming his lawyer, prosecutor and jury, Tyson dismissive insists: "I did not rape Desiree Washington. And that's all I have to say about that."
Tyson reprises his unconditional love for his late mentor, the trainer Cus D'Amato, while guilelessly failing to make the connection between D'Amato's obsessive development of him as an entitled, ego-inflated fighter to the exclusion of nurturing him as a responsible person with the same social responsibilities as the rest of us.
On his shocking 10th-round knockout loss to 42-to-1 underdog Buster Douglas, whose performance was brave and brilliant, Tyson whines about an alleged long count in the eighth round that benefited Douglas. It's a stale complaint, recycled.
Tyson does a pretty good, and funny, imitation of Don King, the bombastic promoter, then repeatedly calls him the Devil and takes little responsibility for squandering the wealth King helped him acquire.
Tyson again calls his first wife, the actress Robin Givens, and her mother Ruth Roper, gold diggers. Nothing new there, either.
He still revels in long-past glory when he was the self-styled "baddest man" in boxing, but Tyson says nothing about having been knocked out by the two best heavyweights of his generation — Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis, nor does he mention getting ignominiously KO'd by journeymen Danny Williams and Kevin McBride.
He apologizes for biting off a piece of Holyfield's ear in their rematch, saying simply, "I snapped," then moans about how much money the subsequent suspension cost him.
There is no mention, either, of Kevin Rooney, the trainer and D'Amato disciple who helped guide Tyson to his most celebrated victories.
Sure, the show runs for 90 minutes and so it's unfair to expect a thorough biographical review. Some things will be left out. Still, Tyson found time to go on and on and on about his meaningless macho street brawl with former opponent and fellow thug Mitch Green, the whole episode long-forgotten tabloid fodder.
It's all rather tiresome, the consistent scapegoating and the simultaneous self-pity and misplaced pride over his horrifically deprived and depraved childhood, along with his applause-inducing, pandering pledges to be a good husband and father.
No doubt there are those out there, old boxing buffs and freak-show connoisseurs and tough-guy idolators, who will be moved by "Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth," maybe even find it aspiring to performance art, or redemption, or something.
But there are also those who will see the whole production, like boxing itself these days, irrelevant, more accurately described as Mike Tyson: Undiluted Narcissism.
Robert Rubino can be reached at RobertoRubino@comcast.net.
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