Mike Tyson: 'You learn humbleness when you get older in life'
- 10 years ago
‘The baddest man on the planet’. That is what he was known as for his antics in and outside the boxing ring. The former heavyweight champion of the world, the legendary and rather controversial Mike Tyson, is retelling his life in a raw one-man show. He spoke to euronews’ Isabel Kumar at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.
Isabelle Kumar: “Mike Tyson, many thanks for joining me on the Global Conversation. You are here to perform your one-man show “The Undisputed Truth.” It charts the ups and downs of your life, and when you watch it you get the impression you want to set the record straight. Is that a fair assessment?”
Mike Tyson: “I don’t know if I am setting the record straight. I am talking to people about things they pretty much know about, just telling them the underlying story about it, and I don’t think I am trying to set the record straight.”
Isabelle Kumar: “Are you interested in public opinion about yourself when you do this or have you got to a point where …”
Mike Tyson: “No, I just like entertaining people.”
Isabelle Kumar: “What makes you good on the stage? Is it your experience as a boxer, which means it translates itself well on the stage?”
Mike Tyson: “I think my experience of being a fighter, and having experience of being in front of a large crowd of people performing, that gives me enough confidence to pull it off on stage.
Isabelle Kumar: “Does it give you energy?”
Mike Tyson: “Yes, tonnes of energy. It doesn’t matter really. I would perform the same in front of 20,000 people or two people.”
Isabelle Kumar: “How do you measure your success? Because in the olden days it was how many people you knocked out. You were phenomenally successful. Now is success important to you and how would you measure it?”
Mike Tyson: “I don’t know. As a human being success is important to anybody, as it is important to you in your field, that you have a good interview. You become acclaimed in your particular field, as I did in mine. People in every field, everyone wants to be noticed about their accomplishments and their hard work, so yeah, I enjoy that as well.”
Isabelle Kumar: “We’ve asked our online audience to send in questions, and we’ve been flooded with questions. And we received a question from someone who goes by the name of Adriel Moodley. He asks – and I think it’s a question a lot of people are asking – ‘Why did you turn to stand up comedy?’. I know it’s not all comedy, you talk about some of the hard parts of your life, but how did you get there?”
Mike Tyson: “I watched an actor in America and his name is Chaz Palminteri and he’s a great actor and he did a movie called A Bronx Tale. And this particular night I watched him do the whole movie on stage and he did it by himself and the movie was extremely successful, really a block buster movie. But I believe he did better on stage by himself than he did in the movie. He totally captivated everyone there, 9,000 or 8,000 people. He just captivated us and you could hear nothing but his voice. I just thought that was an amazing feeling and I wanted to be able to do that.”
Isabelle Kumar: “I’ve read your autobiography and I’ve watched your show, you had to leave some parts out. Could there ever be an Undisputed Truth part two?”
Mike Tyson: “Oh yeah, we do have another show, but it’s just that Undisputed Truth has sucked the air out of everything, with so many demands for the show, which I’m very grateful for. I can’t say this, but sometimes I wish it would just simmer down a little so we could have the opportunity to show our next show, which is really amazing as well.”
Isabelle Kumar: “Tell me a little bit about it.”
Mike Tyson: “It’s like Undisputed Truth, but it’s called Addicted to Chaos, pretty much the insane years. And it talks about a lot of things that I was unable to say in the first one.”
Isabelle Kumar: “Can you tell me a little bit?
Mike Tyson: “Well you know in one particular incident I was interviewed by a news reporter, a very frail, young, white gentleman, very frail. When he came to interview me there were people teasing him, you know some of the fighters, some of the kids outside the gym, calling him names, your this, your that. And so when I was interviewing with him, it was a great interview, I made sure I stopped the guys from humiliating him. It was a Muslim holiday, Ramadan, so I have my Muslim garb, I have my Koran, so I say leave this man alone, he’s a human being, he deserves to be treated with respect. And so I go through with the interview, and about two weeks later, Ramadan was over, my friend says ‘Mike, I’m in the gym, and the FBI would like to speak with you’. So I go and I talk to them and they have a three-block radius blocked off. So I come up there and I say ‘Yes, sir’ and then they show me a picture of the interviewer, and they say ‘do you know this gentleman right here’ and I say ‘yes this is the gentleman that interviewed me two weeks ago’ and I said ‘listen if I did anything, if I was a little to
Isabelle Kumar: “Mike Tyson, many thanks for joining me on the Global Conversation. You are here to perform your one-man show “The Undisputed Truth.” It charts the ups and downs of your life, and when you watch it you get the impression you want to set the record straight. Is that a fair assessment?”
Mike Tyson: “I don’t know if I am setting the record straight. I am talking to people about things they pretty much know about, just telling them the underlying story about it, and I don’t think I am trying to set the record straight.”
Isabelle Kumar: “Are you interested in public opinion about yourself when you do this or have you got to a point where …”
Mike Tyson: “No, I just like entertaining people.”
Isabelle Kumar: “What makes you good on the stage? Is it your experience as a boxer, which means it translates itself well on the stage?”
Mike Tyson: “I think my experience of being a fighter, and having experience of being in front of a large crowd of people performing, that gives me enough confidence to pull it off on stage.
Isabelle Kumar: “Does it give you energy?”
Mike Tyson: “Yes, tonnes of energy. It doesn’t matter really. I would perform the same in front of 20,000 people or two people.”
Isabelle Kumar: “How do you measure your success? Because in the olden days it was how many people you knocked out. You were phenomenally successful. Now is success important to you and how would you measure it?”
Mike Tyson: “I don’t know. As a human being success is important to anybody, as it is important to you in your field, that you have a good interview. You become acclaimed in your particular field, as I did in mine. People in every field, everyone wants to be noticed about their accomplishments and their hard work, so yeah, I enjoy that as well.”
Isabelle Kumar: “We’ve asked our online audience to send in questions, and we’ve been flooded with questions. And we received a question from someone who goes by the name of Adriel Moodley. He asks – and I think it’s a question a lot of people are asking – ‘Why did you turn to stand up comedy?’. I know it’s not all comedy, you talk about some of the hard parts of your life, but how did you get there?”
Mike Tyson: “I watched an actor in America and his name is Chaz Palminteri and he’s a great actor and he did a movie called A Bronx Tale. And this particular night I watched him do the whole movie on stage and he did it by himself and the movie was extremely successful, really a block buster movie. But I believe he did better on stage by himself than he did in the movie. He totally captivated everyone there, 9,000 or 8,000 people. He just captivated us and you could hear nothing but his voice. I just thought that was an amazing feeling and I wanted to be able to do that.”
Isabelle Kumar: “I’ve read your autobiography and I’ve watched your show, you had to leave some parts out. Could there ever be an Undisputed Truth part two?”
Mike Tyson: “Oh yeah, we do have another show, but it’s just that Undisputed Truth has sucked the air out of everything, with so many demands for the show, which I’m very grateful for. I can’t say this, but sometimes I wish it would just simmer down a little so we could have the opportunity to show our next show, which is really amazing as well.”
Isabelle Kumar: “Tell me a little bit about it.”
Mike Tyson: “It’s like Undisputed Truth, but it’s called Addicted to Chaos, pretty much the insane years. And it talks about a lot of things that I was unable to say in the first one.”
Isabelle Kumar: “Can you tell me a little bit?
Mike Tyson: “Well you know in one particular incident I was interviewed by a news reporter, a very frail, young, white gentleman, very frail. When he came to interview me there were people teasing him, you know some of the fighters, some of the kids outside the gym, calling him names, your this, your that. And so when I was interviewing with him, it was a great interview, I made sure I stopped the guys from humiliating him. It was a Muslim holiday, Ramadan, so I have my Muslim garb, I have my Koran, so I say leave this man alone, he’s a human being, he deserves to be treated with respect. And so I go through with the interview, and about two weeks later, Ramadan was over, my friend says ‘Mike, I’m in the gym, and the FBI would like to speak with you’. So I go and I talk to them and they have a three-block radius blocked off. So I come up there and I say ‘Yes, sir’ and then they show me a picture of the interviewer, and they say ‘do you know this gentleman right here’ and I say ‘yes this is the gentleman that interviewed me two weeks ago’ and I said ‘listen if I did anything, if I was a little to