The year is 2002. The UFC is at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England, holding UFC 38, the first UFC event in Europe. The main event for the card is a welterweight championship rematch between Matt Hughes and Carlos Newton. Several British fighters are featured on the card including Ian Freeman and Mark Weir. The event is a good one and though the attendance is only 3,800 fans, the UFC would gain a foothold in the UK that would lead to many future events across the pond. But none of this is the real story of that weekend. After the event there is a party out on the town in London. Many fighters converge on the bar scene, including members of the Miletich camp, Tito Ortiz, Chuck Liddell, and locals Tony Fryklund and Lee Murray. Eventually the party moves out of the club and onto the street where violence erupts. Liddell has his back against the wall of the building and is throwing bombs at people rushing him, creating a pile of unconsciousness at his feet. Pat Miletich and Matt Hughes are in the middle of the brawl tossing fools around. Murray and Fryklund jump into the melee, pulling people apart and knocking some people to the ground. One of the people Murray knocks over is a friend of Tito Ortiz's. Miletich and a few others pull everyone apart but in the process Ortiz's friend gets a facefull of fist and is knocked out. Ortiz rushes Murray and the two eventually find their way into an alley. So now Murray and Ortiz are squaring-off in the alley beside the club getting ready to go, taking off jackets and watches. Moments later Ortiz is face up on the ground in dreamland getting his head stomped on by Murray, renowned for his quick strikes. Matt Hughes yells at Murray to get out of there and he apologizes, then complies. Fryklund helps Ortiz to his feet and police arrive on the scene to bust up the ruckus. But this isn't the big story of Lightning Lee Murray. In 2005 Murray attended a glamour model party at the Funky Buddah club in London. When the party cleared out Murray was stabbed on the street and was rushed to hospital. His lung was punctured and he had a severed artery. He should've died, but his life was saved by nurses running bags of blood to the ER from the blood bank. Even that isn't the important part of his story. In June of 2006 six men took the manager of a Securitas Cash Managemend Ltd. depot and his family hostage and bound fourteen staff members in the greatest cash heist in UK history. According to wikipedia, the manager of the depot was pulled to the side of the road by an unmarked police vehicle. He was put into the back of the police car and handcuffed. The policemen transfered him into a van and brought him to a farm in Staplehurst in Kent. In the meantime, the manager's wife and child were being held hostage at their home by men also dressed as policemen. They had gained entry into the manager's home by telling his wife he had been in a car accident. The men brought the manager's wife and son to the farm and reunited the family, but threatened them at gunpoint to elaborate their demands. The robbers took the family to the cash depot after 2AM and there they forced fourteen employees of the facility to surrender and then tied them up. The victims were locked in cash cages for half an hour before the child was able to escape through the bars and free the others, who sounded the alarms and brought the police to the site. By this point the thieves had made off with a staggering $93-million USD in used, unmarked cash. Yes, this is going to be a movie in the next year or two, bank on it. To make a long story short, Lee Murray was arrested in Morocco in 2006 on possession charges. Morocco's laws are complicated so Murray hasn't officially been charged in connection with the Securitas robbery yet, but he allegedly is one of the masterminds of the plot. If he has to serve a prison sentence he will likely be extradited afterward to England where he should be charged and made to stand trial for the unbelievable heist. Murray hasn't fought in MMA since 2004, when he lost a unanimous decision to then Cage Rage champion Anderson Silva.
wow thats so crazy. What a gangsta. Also I imagine that brawl with Chuck just knocking people out was very awesome.
"Lightning" was released from prison this week, according to Dave Meltzer. Murray cannot leave Morocco or else face extradition to the UK where he will stand trial for the theft. So, I suppose he'll have to chill in Morocco with the millions of still-missing dollars instead. Poor guy!
Unfortunately for Murray, he was arrested again shortly after being released. Supposedly relating to a robbery in Morocco.
