To say Suge Knight had a loose grasp of the law would be an understatement. Or perhaps he did know it well and went ahead with the things he did anyway. We will never know. Knight, who was 6’2″, 265 lb while playing college football, later became one of the co-founders of Death Row, and subsequently gained infamy as one of the most dangerous names in hip hop history.
Advertisement
But there are some people even Knight would not want to meet in a dark alley at night. And one of them played in the NBA.
Chicago Bulls legend Scottie Pippen had once claimed that Knight was terrified of going against Charles Oakley. This piece of information was revealed a few years back, in 2021, during an episode of Oakley’s podcast, to be exact.
In the show, Pippen had recalled being at a party with Oakley and Knight. And Knight was pushing people around when Oakley turned to look at the commotion. Suge kind of stopped after seeing Oakley.
After a few seconds, Oakley turned his attention back to Pippen and told him to chill because Knight didn’t want ‘any of this smoke.’ After narrating the incident, Pippen had stated that he himself would have had a hard time believing it had he not seen Knight walk around Oakley that night.
Oakley recently recalled that night during an interview on The Art of Dialogue. “We were at the VMA in Miami, I think. It was the afterparty and… it was just like, me and Scottie and a few other guys and he was just pushing people out of the way,” he recalled.
“I guess he had a bodyguard, and they said, ‘Excuse me, someone is coming through.’ I am like, ‘Who’s coming through? Okay, I am trying to get to my seat too.’ But naah, it did happen. Then nothing happened. I just said, ‘Hey, no, man. Whatever this and that.’ It didn’t get out of hand or nothing,” Oakley explained, adding that he had probably seen Suge a couple of times before that.
When asked if Knight was bullying people around back then, Oakley replied that he wasn’t hanging out with him to comment on that. “I mean, anybody can be a bully with 10 guys,” he added nonchalantly.
Oakley conceded that Knight was a big guy who played football. So he could probably fight, but claimed he could never tell because Suge always had an entourage around him.
“Some people got security like, I don’t know. Some people need it, some people don’t. But it’s more of a show thing if they can afford it,” added Oakley, with a hint of disdain in his voice.
Oakley does have a point. And yes, Knight never messed with him, or Oakley might have had to find out if he could actually fight or not.
