Sports

Tyson takes life on road

In some respects it’s the most unlikely place for Mike Tyson to start the national tour of his one-man show “Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth.” In other ways it’s the perfect place.

Indianapolis, the city where Tyson was charged and ultimately convicted of the 1991 rape of Desiree Washington, will be where the one-show begins a 30-city tour on Wednesday at the Murat Theater.

Among those Tyson hopes will be in attendance is Patricia Gifford, the judge who sentenced him to 10 years in the Indiana Youth Center.

“I look at this as a chance to see some friends I haven’t seen in a long time,” Tyson told The Post yesterday. “I’m even going to invite Patricia Gifford to come. I want them to see where I am now. I want them to see the development of Mike Tyson and where he came from being the person I was when they first met me to who I am now.”

That in essence is the story of “Undisputed Truth,” which premiered in Las Vegas last April and had a 12-show run on Broadway last August. The show consists of Tyson talking about different people and periods in his life, including when he was charged with raping Washington, a teenage Miss Black America pageant contestant in his Indianapolis hotel room July 19, 1991.

After a 13-day trial, a jury took 10 hours to convict Tyson of one count of rape and two counts of deviate conduct. He could have faced up to 60 years in prison. But Gifford, who retired in 2009 after 30 years on the bench, gave Tyson 10 years on each count with the sentences to run concurrently. He was out after three years on good behavior. To this day, Tyson denies he was guilty of rape, but holds no bitterness toward those who prosecuted him or the city of Indianapolis.

“I’m just looking at it from a positive perspective,” Tyson said of his return to the Hoosier city. “I’m not going to be negative and say Indiana’s got so much power over me and it’s going to thwart me from living my life. That was just a moment in time, something that happened in my life. The whole Indiana doesn’t believe that [garbage] about what happened. That was just a few particular individuals.”

Tyson, happily married to his wife Kiki Tyson, knows there always will be some who can’t get past his rape conviction even though he has embarked on a more positive lifestyle, including the formation of his Mike Tyson Cares Foundation for at-risk children.

“I’m not going to be stuck and stagnated back in ’92 or ’91,” said Tyson, who also supports an energy drink called Black Energy. “Anybody who is stuck back then is going to see what they want. They’re entitled to their opinion. I’m never going to win them over and I’m never going to attempt to win them over. I’m just happy I can entertain those who want to come out and see me.”

Undisputed Truth will be at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on March 19 and the Beacon Theater in New York on April 28 and the NYCB Theatre at Westbury on May 5.