Where Childhood Meets Academia

Let's Go Little Joe!

A B A B A B duck.  A B A B A B dodge.

I've done them all.  If you're an early 80s child like myself, you probably know that I'm talking about the best way to defeat Glass Joe.  If you don't know who Glass Joe is, and don't recognize the picture here, maybe you were living under a rock or were in one of those households that swore off Nintendo as devil worship.  But in my house, unless you could reach and beat Soda Popinski, you were nothing.

I grew up playing Tyson, watching Tyson, and then watching as Tyson slowly unraveled everything he had built for himself following his rescue from the streets.  The loss due to lack of preparation, the rape conviction, and then the sad decline of his boxing skills until he decided to go cannibal on Evander Holyfield.  As a sports fan as well as a history fan, watching the demise of one of the most feared boxers to ever live, and a man that as a kid I felt was invincible, was a sad wake up call to the brevity of glory in the world of athletics.  It taught me a lot, but at the same time, I guess even now as Tyson moves to cameo roles in movies I still wish for one more moment of boxing glory from him.  I want to rewind the tape of time and have him beat Buster Douglas.  Would he have gone on to be the greatest boxer to ever live?  More importantly, would his continued invincibility in the ring save him from himself outside of it, as well as saving his victim from the most horrendous crime a man can commit?  We can't know, but when you watch his knock out rounds from the beginning of his career and rise to glory, you can't help but wonder.

In college I took a Theater class focused on Solo Performance.  In it, we'd pick topics and write monologues to perform.  Then, we polished one piece, and performed it on stage for an audience as the final.  Mine was about smoking on campus and then hitting on my Spanish teacher.  But the class in general put a love for the solo performer in me, so now when I see monologues and 1-man shows, they strike a chord.  Naturally, when I heard about Tyson's one man show, Undisputed Truth, I was intrigued, especially when I heard an excerpt of his story about coming home during his divorce from Robin Givens to find her sleeping with a then unknown Brad Pitt.

Then this week they announced he'd be doing a show at the Orpheum in March.  I had to buy a ticket.  Whether it's a train wreck or a masterpiece is anyone's guess, but overall reviews of the show have been positive and at the very least, I'll get to see an icon from my childhood who turned sour take the stage to tackle a performance medium that I love.  More than that, it's a true tale of redemption.  Here's a man who left the lowest of slums to reach the heights of boxing fame, only to allow hubris to dismantle his career, crime to push him to the prison boxing originally saved him from, and lavish expenditures and drugs to drain the fortune he had built.  Here he realizes the second act.  Cleaned up from drugs, taking a hard and honest look at his life, and sharing both the funny and unfunny from what has been one of the more tumultuous athletic careers of the last 50 years, Tyson puts himself in an open and vulnerable position.  But from a man who has lived his life, both good and bad, in the spotlight, trading in his former ring invincibility for theatrical vulnerability may just be the toughest battle yet.

And who knows, maybe, just maybe, he'll do a little of Phil Collins for the true believers.