Pigeons and Pussy: A Night on Broadway with Mike Tyson
Before Chris Brown gave Rihanna a black eye, even before R. Kelly peed on a teenage girl, boxer Mike Tyson was the person America loved to disapprove of, and for good reason. He beat up American sweetheart Robin Givens, was convicted for raping a Miss Black America contestant, and bit off boxer Evander Holyfield’s ear, among other terrible things. However, it turns out Fitzgerald was full of shit and there are totally second acts in American lives: Lately, Iron Mike has starred as a parody of himself in The Hangover, released a self-titled documentary about his coke addiction, and even apologized to Holyfield. And now Mike has an autobiographical one-man Broadway show called Undisputed Truth: Mike Tyson, following the immutable law that if a noun is famous enough, Broadway will make a play about it.Undisputed Truth was written by his third wife (some nobody named Kiki), and directed by Spike Lee because of course it was.
The play is clearly intended to clear Mike’s name, or at least share his side of his horrible, horrible life story, and people were totally into it. Tickets ranged from $75 balcony seats to $300 VIP packages that included front row seats and a meet and greet with Mike after the show.
Many VIP ticketholders arrived an hour early to the Longacre Theatre. One VIP guest, Little John, met Mike a month ago at a boxing dinner, yet paid to meet him again after the play. I asked Little John if the controversy surrounding Mike bothered him.
“What controversy?” he screamed. “He’s Mike Tyson! He’s just a human!”
His friend Caser agreed: “Yeah, he’s Mike Tyson!” This is apparently the standard response to questions like, “Why are you so pumped up to see a former violent maniac cokehead rapist?”
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