Mike Tyson has countless stories about his relationship with Tupac Shakur. The two were close friends and had a mutual admiration for each other.
Tupac was supposed to make a ring walk song for Mike Tyson
Shakur and Tyson’s relationship went beyond just hanging out. The two would occasionally do favors for each other, as well. Tyson once helped Shakur get into a club when he was relatively unknown, and Shakur was supposed to make a ring entrance song for Tyson for his Bruce Seldon match.
“He was doing my song,” Tyson told VLAD TV. “So I’m saying, ‘Pac, it’s close to the fight man, I think I need the song. The songs are always late sometimes. ‘Cause he was cramming them, and so he always got them in like one hook anyway. Just one take he always got ‘em, yeah. And he always brought them on time, he was always late.”
Mike Tyson thinks Tupac would’ve been a great entrepreneur today
Tyson frequently mentions how much he admired Shakur, and believes the iconic rapper would’ve been a premier entrepreneur in today’s society.
“He was the best though, I really miss that guy,” Tyson said. “Imagine now, he would be such a entrepreneur now. You know, it would see that he would be. He would be such a independent entrepreneur now. He had the right people, he’d have been an awesome entrepreneur.”
He felt guilty about Tupac’s drive-by shooting in Las Vegas
The night of Tyson’s match, Shakur was involved in a drive-by shooting that left him critically injured. He died in the hospital six days later. Immediately after he he ard about Shakur’s incident, Tyson felt guilty.
“I just knew it was really a bad day when that happened, I just knew it was really bad,” Tyson said. “I feel a little guilty about him coming to the fight, me pressuring him, ‘Hey bring the tape, don’t forget the tape.’”
Mike Tyson was supposed to hang out with Tupac the night he was shot
Tyson’s guilt probably stemmed from him knowing that he was supposed to hang out with Shakur that same night.
“I was gonna go out with him that night, I promised to go to 662 with him that night,” Tyson revealed. “But I had just had a little baby and her mother was provoking me to stay home, so I stayed home with the baby and someone called me that night and told me what happened and I’m just…”
He expected bad things to happen around his fights
As odd as it may sound, Tyson often anticipated violent events in the aftermath of his boxing matches. His connection to the street life meant that criminals and miscreants were frequently around him.
“This is just what we do,” Tyson said. “I come to my senses, I come to my objectivity and I know who I am, I know what my element’s about. In my world, that’s what happens in my world … But just because it was Tupac and I was attached to it, it was different. But normally I expect somebody to die after a fight, or somebody gets hurt or something crazy happens. But when it happened to him it was different.”