Mike Tyson, born June 30, 1966, in Brooklyn, became the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history in November 1986, at the age of 20. For many young Black Americans he was more than an athlete, someone from similar circumstances who made it to the very top and then fell hard. Tupac saw a kindred spirit in him: both became famous, both went to prison for sex offences, and both were treated by the press as symbols of Black violence.
Two inmates, two comebacks
Tyson was in prison from 1992 until March 1995. By the time he got out, Tupac was locked up himself. Only in 1996 were both free again, and both at the peak of a comeback. Tyson has often talked about their friendship in later interviews.
September 7, 1996
In September 1996 Tyson fought Bruce Seldon for the WBA title at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Tupac recorded his own ring-walk music for Tyson in 1996: Road to Glory for the Frank Bruno fight in March, and for the Seldon fight Let’s Get It On, according to producer Robert Gutierrez in the documentary One Night in Vegas (2010), cut in about 20 minutes just days before. Neither track was ever officially released; they survive mainly in recordings of the fight broadcasts.
On the evening of September 7, Tupac was in the arena with Suge Knight. The fight lasted less than two minutes: Tyson won in the first round, and Seldon was mocked in the press afterwards for going down so easily. It is often said that Tyson won “after a few rounds”in fact it was over after 109 seconds.
After the fight, a brawl broke out in the MGM Grand lobby involving Tupac and members of the Death Row entourage; the man on the receiving end was Orlando Anderson of the Southside Compton Crips. A few hours later Tupac was shot from a car at an intersection near the Strip. He died on September 13. What happened that night, and who was found guilty of it in 2026, is covered on the page about the 1996 shooting.
What remains unclear
It is sometimes claimed that Tyson visited Tupac in hospital, walked out to Ambitionz Az a Ridah, and that Tupac dedicated Lie to Kick It to him. None of these claims could be backed up by a reliable source.