Luciano Gonzalez
08/01/2020 - 9:00
- Clarín.com
- sports
It was 8:45 PM on September 7, 1996 when referee Richard Steele raised his right arm without much encouragement from the man who had just regained a title he had lost more than six years ago. Many of the 9,511 spectators whistled and booed at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. In the first row of the ring side , however, a young man applauded vigorously. At the time, Mike Tyson didn't know that this would be the last night he would come out of a ring as a world champion. Nor did Tupac Shakur know that this would be the last night he would see his friend. The tragic night of glory and blood.
Tyson was trying to reconstruct the hegemony he had held in the top boxing category during the second half of the 1980s and that had been shattered when James Buster Douglas had struck one of the loudest hits in the world on February 11, 1990. history of boxing . After that fall in Tokyo, Iron Mike had begun the darkest period of his life, beyond the borders of the ring.
On February 10, 1992, two years after giving up the titles of the World Association, the World Council and the International Boxing Federation, he was found guilty of having raped Desiree Washington, an 18-year-old girl on July 19, 1991. who entered the Miss Black America pageant, and sentenced to six years in prison , of which he only served three years at the Indiana Youth Center, a medium-high security prison in Plainfield, 30 miles east of Indianapolis.
A few months after entering the prison complex, the Brooklyn knockout received a visit that generated quite a stir among the inmates. "He stood on a table and began to speak. Everyone, including the white prisoners and the guards, went crazy. I had no idea he was that big then because he was inside, ”Tyson recounted years later. The visitor was rapper Tupac Shakur, who at the end of the previous year had released his debut album, 2Pacalypse Now (sold 500,000 copies), and had debuted as the lead actor in Ernest Dickerson's film Juice .
The son of two former Black Panther Party members, Lesane Parish Crook s was born on June 16, 1971 in Harlem. Two weeks later, his mother, Afeni Shakur, had renamed him Tupac Amaru Shakur, in honor of the leader of the largest indigenous revolution in America. At 13, he had moved with his mother and younger sister, Sekyiwa, to Pen Lucy, one of the rough neighborhoods of rough Baltimore. At High School for the Performing Arts he had studied theater and had made his first forays into music. At 17, the family had moved to Marin City, 13 kilometers from San Francisco, where Tupac began his rap career.
Tupac Shakur (left) alongside Mike Tyson (crouched), at the Indiana Youth Center, where the boxer was serving his sentence for the violation of Desiree Washington.
In mid-1991, the musician, still an unknown, and the champion met during a party at the Hollywood Palladium. “He wasn't scheduled to act, but he picked up the microphone and started rapping. The crowd went wild. 'Who's that boy?' , I asked for. 'It's Tupac. It's going to be a star someday , ' they told me. He had a smile that illuminated the club and a special energy, ”Tyson recalled in 2017, in an interview published in XXL magazine. But only after the visit in Plainfield prison did they begin to forge a friendship that lasted just four years.
Mike Tyson and Tupac Shakur met in 1991 at a party in Hollywood.
On March 26, 1995, Tyson was released, converted to Islam and determined to make up for lost time and the crown of the King of the Heavy. A few months earlier, Shakur had followed the reverse path: On December 1, 1994, he had been sentenced to four and a half years in prison for sexual abuse against Ayanna Jackson a year ago in New York. During the course of the trial, he had been shot in the entrance of a recording studio.
Four days after being released, the former world champion announced that he would box again. After several weeks of speculation about possible rivals, the chosen one was the little-known Peter McNeeley . Despite the adversary's poor competitiveness, the expectation was capital: on August 19, 16,113 people filled the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and 1,520,000 paid to access the live broadcast, a record for the time . Little and lackluster was the action: it only took six seconds for McNeeley to visit the canvas for the first time and just 89 minutes elapsed until his manager, Vinny Vecchione, invaded the ring to stop the contest.
That night Tyson entered the ring accompanied by the song "Time 4 Sum Aksion" by Redman, a well-known rapper from New Jersey. That gesture did not appeal to Shakur, who was released on October 12, 1995, after spending just 10 months at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora and posting bail of $ 1.4 million. "When we saw each other, he said to me, 'Don't use that music again, it doesn't represent you . ' It went through my soul. I felt I had done something wrong, "revealed the boxer.
To keep it from repeating, Tupac, who had reached the top sales position with his third album, Me Against the World (released during his prison term), recorded a song especially for his friend to use on his way to the ring in his next presentation. On the loudspeakers of the Philadelphia Spectrum, "Ambitionz Az A Fighta" sounded before Tyson liquidated Buster Mathis Jr. in three rounds on December 16.
The new ladder to the top required a higher level of opposition and, above all, titles at stake. The first to give him the chance, on March 16, 1996, was Council champion Frank Bruno , who had won the belt six months earlier against Oliver McCall on his fourth World Cup chance. One of his three failed attempts had been in 1989 against Iron Mike , who had knocked him out in five rounds.
Again the Tyson magnet drew crowds: 1,370,000 pay-per-view sales (priced at $ 39.95) and 16,143 spectators at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, including 5,000 rowdy Britons who had traveled to support their champion. But Bruno could do little: less than seven minutes he resisted a boxer who at times made him remember the one who had devastated all the opponents that had stood in front of him between 1986 and 1989.
Mike Tyson, along with Tupac Shakur.
Before starting the demolition, the still challenger had heard Tupac Shakur's phrasing in "Road 2 glory" . Finished the tunda and already champion again, he hugged himself on the way back to the locker room with his friend, who the previous month had again seen his name at the top of the sales list, thanks to his album All Eyez on Me .
The first defense of the Council crown should be against Lennox Lewis , number one in the ranking, but Don King preferred to pay four million dollars to the English to avoid that commitment and that his ward went in search of the WBA belt against Bruce Seldon , a fighter of modest record of services, who the previous year had taken advantage of a vacancy of the title after the dispossession of George Foreman to establish himself champion against Tony Tucker . The unification duel was initially agreed for July 13 at the MGM Grand, but a bronchitis that affected Tyson forced him to be postponed for the fateful night of September 7 .
Just a day before the match, Tupac Shakur recorded "Letz Get It On (Ready 2 Rumble)" , a song dedicated to the champion, which would play during the walk to the ring . Finished the task in the studio, the artist traveled to Las Vegas with a large group of companions, a few weapons and a bulletproof vest that he had been wearing for several months , before the possibility of a new attack in the middle of an open war between the rappers from the East Coast and the West Coast of the United States.
"In this corner / The ghetto gladiator / Iron Mike Tyson / He has never been defeated / You cannot bend a good man," said the lyrics of "Letz Get It On (Ready 2 Rumble)," which allowed himself freedom. poetic of erasing from the record of the boxer of Brooklyn the fall before James Douglas. "Seldon, I hardly know you, don't bother showing me / I felt the leather of my combinations" , he added, in a premonitory key.
Bruce Seldon lies on the canvas, Richard Steele starts the count, Mike Tyson walks away.
Seldon felt the leather. Hardly 70 seconds had passed since the initial bell when an almost imperceptible and apparently harmless left-handed shot sent him to the ground. Even referee Richard Steele was not convinced of the power of the impact, as he hesitated before starting the count, which finally reached eight. The flimsy monarch stood up and received the pass, but a left-handed hook, this one better applied, put him back on the canvas. Although he regained the vertical, his gelatinous legs and his unwillingness to continue made Steele end the contest after only 109 seconds.
A large part of the public was furious and denounced, at the top of their voices, an alleged settlement. "I didn't train 12 weeks to come here to dive. I came to win. I'm already a millionaire, it's not about money. I did the best I could, but he is a great fighter ”, argued the defeated man, who for his work received five million dollars. "I hit harder now than when I was young," explained the winner, who bagged 15 million.
After the brief battle, which ended at 8:45 pm, Tupac Shakur left the stadium with Marion Suge Knight, owner of the Death Row Records label, with whom the musician had a contract, and a dozen companions and bodyguards. Still inside the casino grounds, they spotted Orlando Anderson, a young member of the Southside Compton gang, who two months earlier had stolen a pendant from Trevon Lane, one of the members of the party. Without too much foreplay, the group beat him up.
Despite the fact that the incident had been observed by numerous witnesses and recorded by the MGM security cameras, no one attempted to stop the attackers. Before leaving the complex, Tupac went through the press room. “We only talk a lot of nonsense. Then I went home and he left, too, ”said the champion. During that conference, Don King confirmed that his boxer's next opponent would be Evander Holyfield . Tupac's party moved to Knight's house, eight kilometers from the MGM, and from there they left in several cars around 22:30 to a party at Club 662, owned by the businessman, but never arrived.
A black BMW led the caravan. At the wheel was Knight; in the passenger seat, Shakur, without his bulletproof vest. They were driving on East Flamingo Road when they stopped at a stoplight at the corner of Koval Lane. It was 23.15. A white Cadillac with three men on board stood alongside and to the right. The rear-seat passenger pulled a semi-automatic pistol out the left front window and fired 13 times. The musician was shot in the chest, one in the hand, one in the abdomen and one in the leg, while the businessman only suffered a slight head injury.
The last image: Tupac Shakur with Marion Knight, in the BMW that would later be attacked.
The attackers escaped. With two burst BMW tires, Knight made a U-turn and managed to cover a little more than a kilometer before being stopped by the Police. Still conscious, Tupac was transferred by ambulance to the University Medical Center. He was operated immediately. The following day, he underwent another operation, in which his right lung was removed to try to stop internal bleeding.
Tyson was sleeping at home when they called him to tell him the news. That morning, he tried to visit his friend in the hospital, but was unable to see him due to his serious condition. He could no longer do it: the condition of the artist, barely 25 years old, worsened until Friday, September 13, at 16.03, his mother Afeni decided to withdraw the mechanical respiratory assistance. The body was cremated a few hours later.
The murder was never cleared up. On September 11, when Tupac was still alive, Knight testified in the Las Vegas Police Homicide Division. He did not give clues about those responsible or the reasons for the attack. "We were expecting him to tell us who shot them, but he did not give us anything beneficial," said Kevin Manning, the sergeant in charge of the investigation.
Orlando Anderson, the young man who had been beaten by Shakur's group at the MGM Grand, was singled out as a participant along with two other members of the Southside Compton gang: Dwayne Keith Davis, who would have been the shooter, and Jerry Bonds, the supposed driver of the Cadillac. However, nothing could be proved against them. Anderson died in May 1998 during a shooting at a car wash in Compton, 10 miles south of Los Angeles.
As that investigation wandered into nowhere, Tyson ratified his refusal to face Lennox Lewis, renounced the WBC title and signed the contract to make his first defense of the WBA scepter against Holyfield, in a fight that had more than five years of waiting and it had been scheduled and canceled twice. It was to take place on June 18, 1990, but the champion's loss to James Douglas four months earlier had thrown everything overboard. He was later agreed to on November 8, 1991, but first an injury to Iron Mike's ribs and then his conviction for the violation of Washington forced the suspension.
On November 9, Tyson, super-favorite to retain his title, walked the path from the locker room to the MGM Grand ring accompanied by the voice of his deceased friend, who sang “Toss it up” , one of the songs from the album The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory , which Tupac had finished recording in late August, which went on sale two days before the match, albeit under the pseudonym Makaveli, and which would go on to become a quadruple platinum record in the United States.
Mike Tyson collapses, as Evander Holyfield watches him.
On the ring , there was little that the champion could do, who was clearly overcome until referee Mitch Halpern stopped the contest in the 11th round. Seven months later, the rematch would come, the remembered bite on the right ear and the disqualification of the Brooklyn knockout, who would start the definitive slide of his career . That race that in September, 15 years after its final chapter, will have a bonus track with the announced fight against Roy Jones Jr.
In a life riddled with extreme situations, the never-cleared death of Tupac Shakur was a heavy burden that Tyson carried since the day of the attack in Las Vegas. “I feel extremely guilty because I think that if he hadn't gone to my fight, they wouldn't have. shot ”, he acknowledged in 2010.
"He knew a lot. He learned too much in too short a time. He was a bully and a stray, but also very elegant. He was a beautiful, generous boy. That is one of his greatest attributes that is overlooked and underestimated: his generosity, ”he described in July 2017 to the singer, who three months earlier had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was the first rap soloist to access that recognition.
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