I finally finished reading “Undisputed Truth” by “Iron” Mike Tyson aka the Baddest Man on the Planet and world heavyweight boxing champion!

This is a tell-all book by Mike Tyson but it’s not your typical tell-all book like all the others. In most tell all books written by famous celebrities most of them are like, “Please don’t misunderstand me… now hear my story.”. In this book, it’s not like that at all. In this book Tyson doesn’t play the innocent victim. This book explains the life and career of one of the greatest fighters in the world. It explains his childhood all the way up to today.

In this book, Tyson explains all of the bad things he has done in his life. Everything from being a burglar, drug addict, sex addict, alcoholic, egomaniac, etc. You name it… Tyson explains all that stuff. He even talked about the rape controversy w/ Desiree Washington. In this book, he says he didn’t rape that woman and I believe him. Just a woman trying to get fame and money off of him.

When you read this book, I’m sure you’re going to expect this book to be more about boxing than anything else. Well, there are a lot of boxing stuff on here, of course. He goes into detail with a lot of his fights and he explained the story of how his first trainer/manager Cus D’Amato made him out to be. It was Cus who taught him how to be a tough guy and to be champion. This book was more about life than boxing, though.

In this book, Tyson wanted to be more open about all the mistakes he made in the past and talked about how he went from bad man to good man. He talked about the street fight with Mitch Green and ear biting incident with Evander Holyfield. Tyson explained the reason he bit Holyfield’s ear at the ppv (which I did see on TV back in the day, btw, I saw both Tyson/Holyfield fights on ppv, I’ll never forget ’em both) ’cause he was upset with Holyfield’s headbutting. Tyson/Holyfield didn’t get along back in the day but they’re friends now, I believe. They buried the hatchet publicly on the Oprah show. He talked about all of his past controversies even the tragic death of Exodus — his daughter — is in there too.

This book is more about learning life and learning how to be a better person. Tyson felt guilty and depressed about his past that he wanted to turn his life around for the better. No matter what you think of Iron Mike, love him or hate him, he’s an inspiring guy. He wanted to clean himself up from drugs and get sober. He also wanted to get rid of his sex addiction with women. He did all of that successfully with the help of his wife Kiki. Tyson explained that the reason for the change was that his appearance in “The Hangover” and the death of Exodus made him want to become a better person.

Everybody wants to look at Tyson as a jerk and some egomaniac rich guy but in my opinion, I think he was neither of those. Tyson was never all that rich. Tyson may have been rich during his time in boxing but he gave all his money away and blew it all on drugs, alcohol and women. For the most part, Tyson was broke for most of his life so he didn’t really care about money. He admitted it in his book too.

I can understand how people want to think Tyson as some egomaniac and jerk ’cause of his controversial past but come on, people. Give him a chance. What he did to change his life around… that is worthy alone to be forgiven. And like I said before, Tyson didn’t play innocent victim at all in his book. He knows how badly he treated people. He even felt bad about biting Holyfield’s ear and wished he never did it. He regretted everything he did in the past. So for all these things he’s been doing lately: movie appearances, broadway shows, the book, etc. These things are just his way of trying to make his life better.

This was a pretty powerful and addicting book. I couldn’t put it down. It maybe a long read but worth it. I used to never be a fan of Tyson back in the day like most but after seeing him trying to change his life around… made me respect him a lot more and now I am a fan of his. He’s quite an interesting guy.

Kev