Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington’s professional debut was on the Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder III undercard. His most recent fight was on the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul undercard.

He can’t quite decide which experience was more surreal. 

“Oh, man! It was so crazy,” Carrington said, recalling both events in an interview with BoxingScene. “First of all, I’m super-, super-highly favored and highly blessed. I thank God for being able to be on those types of cards.

“It was electric,” said Carrington, who held his head in his hands as he wracked his brain trying to give one experience the edge over the other. “I don’t know which card was better, man, to be a part of!”

Carrington called Fury-Wilder III, in October 2021, “the most electrifying fight I’ve been a part of, in my life.” But from a storytelling perspective, his spot on last November’s Tyson-Paul card wins out.

In February 2024, Carrington scored a thunderous fourth-round knockout of Bernard Angelo Torres in front of a thrilled crowd at New York’s Theater at Madison Square Garden. Carrington, exuberant after the fight, paid tribute to Tyson by reciting his rant following a knockout of Lou Savarese, which became instantly iconic and is still quoted in boxing circles today.

Carrington pulled off the verse (though he points out he stumbled a little towards the beginning) and caught Tyson’s attention.

“That is what made him say he wanted me on his card! That is actually what made him call my team and be like, ‘Listen, make it happen,’” Carrington said.

“To be honest, I didn’t plan it, it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna do this to get on Tyson’s card,’ or whatever. I knew I wanted to pay homage to him in some form of way the first time I fought on TV. When I did that, it was like, ‘OK, I’m gonna do my best rendition on it.’ It got a lot of people’s attention, and it fell into the right hands, man. I guess it was just divine that everything happened the way it was supposed to.”

The connection goes beyond just a post-fight interview. Both Tyson and Carrington grew up in Brownsville, New York, and Carrington followed “Iron Mike” throughout his childhood. 

“He came over to my house after that, I’ve seen him spar, seen him train, I have his personal number,” Carrington said. “Just being able to watch him in rare form in the ring was something special, was something I’ll never forget.”

Carrington, 14-0 (8 KOs), made the most of the platform, too, knocking down Dana Coolwell twice en route to a clean shutout win. The main event itself was a sad affair, with the 58-year-old Tyson so far removed from the speed, power and reflexes of his prime that the mammoth audience’s nostalgia went unsatisfied.

Carrington didn’t quite see it that way, though.

“I was just happy to see him be strong enough to be able to do this just one more time, and entertain the fans just one more time,” he said. “To be honest, he looked sharper when he was sparring. But I also know he had his own health issues, so for him to be able to get through those health issues, and still fight the way he fought …

“I was happy for Mike. Just God bless him, man. I was just happy to be a part of that whole experience.”

Owen Lewis is a former intern at Defector media and writes and edits for BoxingScene. His beats are tennis, boxing, books, travel and anything else that satisfies his meager attention span. He is on Bluesky.