![]() Jimmy Smith is currently the color analyst for Bellator MMA on Spike TV. ![]() He has also served as a color commentator for Showtime Championship Boxing and starred opposite Sylvester Stallone in the feature film “Rocky Balboa” as the character “Mason Dixon.” 11, 2014) resulted in an impressive seventh-round knockout of 29-2-1 Johnathon Banks. He is currently world-rated in the heavyweight division at No. The 46-year-old Tarver (31-6, 22 KOs) is on a mission to become the oldest heavyweight champion of the world. with a 12-round decision victory in the third fight of their memorable trilogy. After splitting two fights with Glen Johnson, Tarver topped Jones Jr. After a tough 12-round decision loss to Roy Jones Jr, Tarver avenged that bitter defeat with an incredible 2nd round knockout of Jones Jr., shocking and amazing boxing fans worldwide. It always seems on the verge of happening, even as the credits roll and Tyson heads off stage and into the crowd to shake people’s hands.In 2003, Tarver defeated Montell Griffin in the biggest win of his career up to that point to claim the IBF and WBC title belts. Tyson’s actually good with improv, bouncing off responses shouted from the crowd, and both he and his story feel ready to burst from the confines of the show’s structure and its setting - into something rowdier, more profane and probably more upsetting. They feel like they have more unplanned genuineness to them than the production’s sudden swings into pathos, including descriptions of deaths of family members who hadn’t before been mentioned, and whose inclusions are jarringly without lead up. The good-naturedness of Tyson’s descriptions of those times - “We were like a pack of wild dogs,” he observes - is the most moving quality in this show, colored neither with regret nor apology as he talks about how easily he could have ended up a crime statistic. “I was a beautiful child,” he jokes, when talking about how he stabbed someone. His life doesn’t fit easily into the mold of the celebrity redemption narrative - in part because it’s too easy to imagine Tyson getting into some kind of trouble again, but also because it’s so weighted to his beginnings, as that kid in Brownsville learning to fight on the streets. Of his tattoo, he says only “I put this tramp stamp on my face because I wanted to,” while his slide into cocaine use and weight gain are given a cursory treatment. He firmly declares “I did not rape Desiree Washington, and that’s all I have to say about this,” before listing all the famous people who came to visit him in prison after he was convicted of just that. Tyson muses on his love for his trainer Cus D’Amato with more impressions, and badmouths his ex-wife Robin Givens before telling a story about seeing her with Brad Pitt while they were in the process of getting divorced. It’s told with the help of sound effects and a wig, with Tyson playing both himself and his profanity-spewing opponent, who he at once point compares to “Night of the Living Dead” and Jason from “Friday the 13th” for his ability to pop back up after being laid out. The most enjoyable anecdote is an unexpectedly lengthy account of a relatively minor moment in Tyson’s life - his out-of-the-ring brawl with fellow boxer Mitch Green. The title of the show suggests unvarnished openness, but what it really is is an alternate personal history, a refutation of public assumptions - it presumes you’re already familiar with the signposts of its subject’s life, and skips through those, dwelling on certain events while completely brushing over others, including much of Tyson’s boxing career. Lee was perhaps reluctant to sand away all of those edges, and what we see onstage in “Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth” is a bumpy but riveting affair that stretches from Tyson’s tough childhood in Brownsville, Brooklyn to the highs of his championship career, his imprisonment, addiction, and his current place - clean, sober and vegan (!), a family man.
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