What was still mostly talk and propaganda took a turn for the ugly at the Soul Train Awards this part March. When Biggie accepted his award and bigged-up Brooklyn, the crowd hissed. But the real drama came after the show, when Tupac and Biggie came face to face for the first time since Pac's shooting more than two years before. "That was the first time I really looked into his face," says Big. "I looked into his eyes and I was, like, yo, this nigga is really buggin' the fuck out."
The following week's Hollywood Reporter quoted an unnamed source saying that Shakur waved a pistol at Biggie. "Nah, Pac didn't pull steel on me," says Big. "He was on some tough shit, though. I can't knock them dudes for the way they go about their biz. They made everything seem so dramatic. I felt the darkness when he rolled up that night. Duke came out the window fatigued out, screaming 'West Side! Outlaws!' I was, like, 'That's Bishop [Tupac's character in the movie Juice]!' Whatever he's doing right now, that's the role he's playing. He played that shit to a tee. He had his little goons with him, and Suge was with him, and they was, like, 'We gonna settle this now.'"
That's when Big's ace, Little Caesar of Junior M.A.F.I.A., stepped up. "The nigga Ceez--pissy drunk--is up on the joint, like, 'Fuck you!'" Big recalls. "Ceez is, like, 'Fuck you, nigga! East Coast muthafucka!' Pac is like, 'We on the West Side now, we gonna handle that shit.' Then his niggas start formulating and my niggas start formulating--somebody pulled a gun, muthafuckas start screaming, 'He got a gun, he got a gun!' We're, like 'We're in L.A. What the fuck are we supposed to do, shoot out?' That's when I knew it was on."