TYSON, MIKE SIGNED ON SITE POSTER FOR UNDISPUTED TRUTH (2012-SIGNED BY TYSON)

JO Sports, Inc.

Regular price $750.00

HISTORY: This is an original, on site poster for the Broadway show starring Mike Tyson in a one man show which he has boldly signed.

New Yorker-After watching Mike Tyson’s one-man show on Broadway, it all seems so obvious: his life has always been a one-man show. Unlike those fighters whose legacies were carved out in collaboration with rivals—Louis vs. Schmeling, Liston vs. Patterson, Ali vs. Frazier—Tyson never had a true antagonist. His opponents always seemed beside the point. It is precisely his arena-sized isolation, his painfully live, often apocalyptic solo performances that have made him a person of fascination for two and half decades. In person, it’s mostly his lisping wit, the unpredictable turns of his Woody Allen meets Genghis Khan shtick, that continue to surprise. Like every serious analysand, Tyson entices us by hovering constantly on the verge of a “breakthrough.” Who else goes live on the “Today” show and affably speculates, in the spirit of breakfast chatter, that his veganism can be traced to a former compulsion to frequent prostitutes? Sonny Liston was a man who wanted to be left alone. Mike Tyson wants to be left alone on stage.

“Mike Tyson: The Undisputed Truth” was directed by Spike Lee, written by Tyson’s wife, Kiki, and attended by Kanye West, 50 Cent, and Bryant Gumbel. Although structured as an intimate slide show, the performance feels more like a slavishly chronological series of boozy barroom reminiscences, complete with the high-spiritedness, the cringe-inducing settling of scores, the wallowing, the feints of solemnity, and occasional blubbering incoherence built into that form. Some of this jaggedness is to be expected—what would be more dishonest and insufferable than a slick Broadway version of Tyson?

But this doesn’t excuse some of the show’s godawful narrative decisions. Who thought that it would be a good idea to send Tyson off on a pitifully long rant about his ex-wife Robin Givens? Somewhere in the third act of this ugly little play-within-a-play, when Tyson began making sophomoric cracks at a photo of Givens’s mother, I considered standing up and booing. The only thing that prevented me from doing that was the menacingly partisan audience, almost wall-to-wall wise guys and wannabes, who clapped with Stalinist discipline at each cheap applause line. But if these people were truly fans, they would have demanded to hear something substantive about Tyson’s experience as a boxer. At least Harry Houdini, who spent his later years speaking out against magic, had enough regard for his art to debunk it. The premise of “Undisputed”

seems to be that boxing isn’t a worthy subject for storytelling, that Tyson’s career in the ring is nothing more than the backstory for a canned celebrity redemption tale.

There’s no reason for narrative filler when Tyson is one of the few boxing champions whose mind is alive to the problems of fighting as a spectacle. This is the man who once told a bunch of reporters before a fight, “I know at times I come across like a Neanderthal or a babbling idiot, but I like that person. I like to show you that person because that’s who you all come to see. I’m Tyson. I’m a tyrannical titan. And sometimes I say, ‘God, it would be good to be a fake somebody rather than a real nobody.’ ” Nothing in “Undisputed” pops quite like that, nor like the moment in James Toback’s 2008 documentary, in which Tyson provided a startling narration of his experience entering the arena on fight night, engulfed by an ecstatic, screaming, blood-thirsty mass of people, his Dionysian journey from annihilating terror to omnipotence, when he seemed to die—torn to pieces by the frenzied mob—before being reborn in the ring, under the lights. Under these Broadway lights, however, Tyson might as well be reciting from his Wikipedia page when he informs us that he became the youngest champ in history, then pauses for a respectful ovation. Boo!

FULL DESCRIPTION: This is an original, cardboard, on site poster which names and pictures Mike Tyson. Boldly signed, "Mike Tyson" in silver pen. Bold color and print. Bold, clear image. Clean front and back. No tack holes. Not creased or torn. 14" x 22."

Size: 14" x 22"

Condition: Near Mint