"I should be dead, you know?"
That's what the former undisputed heavyweight champion said during an interview as he prepares to star in his one-man show on the Las Vegas Strip, Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth-Live on Stage, according to the Las Vegas Sun.
“I should be dead now, you know? The cops should have killed me,” Tyson says during a lengthy interview in his spacious Seven Hills home. A player piano, silent at the moment, is positioned next to a trophy case filled with title belts, gloves, shoes and photos. Behind him, a gentle waterfall spills over a thin glass plane and splashes into a small bed of rocks.
“The cops pulled me over one day. I was on coke; I was all drunk and high on cocaine, and I told the cops I was lost and couldn’t find my way around, and the cops drove me to the party,” he says. “Are you crazy? It was just before I went clean and sober. The cop who pulled me over, he says, ‘You were great in “Hangover,” ' and he drove me to the dope house, to a party.”
Tyson has once again amazed himself.
“Oh, God. I had no license. I had nothing. It was crazy!” he says, firing out words with the same tenacity as the combinations he used to dismantle opponents in his boxing heyday. “But he drove me there, and then he told the guy at the door, ‘You make sure Mike gets home. I’m going to come back here and make sure.’
Can you believe that (expletive?) When the cops left, everybody in the party left. I was like, ‘Hey! Hold on!’ but they all left. Showing up with cops will ruin the party!”
It is suggested that this story, one that unexpectedly came to Tyson at the tail end of an hourlong conversation, might be one to tell in his upcoming one-man show at MGM Grand’s Hollywood Theatre.
Tyson ponders that idea.
“You think so? I never thought about telling stories like that,” he says. “Oh, man, sometimes I’ve done some stupid stuff; immature, pompous things.” …
Tyson is lucky to be alive to tell his story, which could serve as an important lesson for other people in crisis.
Read more at the Las Vegas Sun.