Fighting legend Mike Tyson has swapped the boxing ring for
the cabaret stage, in a new one-man show which pulls few punches in recounting
the ups and downs of his roller-coaster life.In a stand-up act he hopes to take
to Broadway and beyond, the ex-world champion tackles head on the most
controversial episodes, including his jailing for rape -- he insists he was
wrongly convicted -- and his struggle with drugs.Talking in sometimes frenetic
bursts for almost non stop for two hours -- and showing some nifty footwork to
musical numbers from a jazz-rock ensemble -- he also recalls the good times
when his talent brought him fortune and fame."Welcome to my living
room," said the 45-year-old, opening the first night Friday in an intimate
740-seater theater in the back of the MGM Grand casino complex in Las Vegas,
where the show runs through until Wednesday."Many of you are wondering
what the hell am I going to do up on the stage tonight," he joked at the
start of "Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth, Live on Stage. "To be honest
I'm wondering the same thing too."The answer is a blow-by-blow run through
his life story, starting with his birth in Brooklyn and not knowing who his
real father was, his early brushes with the law, and how his mother whom he admitted was a whore died when he was
16.It was then that his boxing mentor, Cus d'Amato, helped him turn his back on
crime and detention centers and refocus his life around his awesome fighting
talent."I had a lot of emotional problems," he said, evoking a theme
of show, in which Tyson uses an array of expletives -- including the "N'
word, repeatedly -- to describe stupid things he has done over the years.His
bad behavior didn't prevent him from becoming the youngest ever heavyweight
champion of the world at the age of 20, after winning his first 19 professional
bouts by knockouts.But his first marriage to actress Robin Givens unraveled in
1989 -- Tyson tells a funny anecdote about Brad Pitt turning up with his
estranged wife -- and his self-confessed "demons" gradually got the
better of him.In 1992, Tyson was convicted of raping a beauty queen at a
pageant in Indianapolis, Indiana. He served three years of a six-year sentence
before his release in 1995, steadfastly denying he raped the woman."I went
to jail for something I didn't do," he said Friday.Tyson reclaimed the
heavyweight throne but lost to Evander Holyfield in 1996 and in a 1997 rematch
infamously bit Holyfield's ears twice, serving a year's banishment in exile for
the move.The boxer filed for bankruptcy in 2003, the same year his second
marriage ended. He later married his current wife in 2009, but only shortly
after his 4-year-old daughter Exodus died in a tragic accident at home.But he
has revived his career in recent years, appearing in cameo in the
"Hangover" films (the second set in Vegas) and in reality television
shows exploring his love of training pigeons.The Vegas show -- which seems to
be another part of Tyson's showbiz-themed career resurrection -- is co-written
by Tyson's third wife Kiki and Hollywood playwright/director Randy Johnson --
who claims he could take it worldwide."I am hoping to have a run on
Broadway and the West End of London. I think we can play every legitimate
theater in the world," said Johnson, calling Tyson a natural entertainer.The
crowd Friday -- predominantly white, many of them boxing fans in a town which
has a long tradition of hosting major fights -- were mostly impressed about
Tyson's stand-up talents."This guy is a mad man genius. This is what you
get when you have someone with no formal education, but an extremely powerful,
overactive mind," said 36-year-old Joey Jurtzman, from Los Angeles."Everyone
in this casino could learn a lot if they shut their mouths, and shut their
minds and .. just listen to what Mike Tyson says, let it hit you, let it wash
over you, and walk out a better person."