Does anybody remember Sacha Baron Cohen's "Bruno" movie? It was like the sequel to Borat where Cohen traveled around disguised as a gay guy fanning the flames of homophobia for the sake of comedy. 



It was the #1 movie for a couple of weeks when it came out back in 2009. It was a pretty funny movie that I bet has aged well in today's social climate.



In the end of the movie there is a scene where they fooled a crowd of people at an Arkansas MMA show and nearly started a riot with some gay heat. It's a story that Cohen has told repeatedly on talk shows over the last 15 years: 



Doing my annual search for the videos of the actual MMA fights from that event I discovered a reddit thread about it all from 2020: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/hp1jg4/the_time_sacha_baron_cohen_incited_a_riot_in/

I need somebody on PW to get me on their podcast to fully tell this story because it really is pretty amazing. I actually fought on one of the shows that this all happened at and it's remarkable all of the little details about that whole event that never get mentioned in any interviews or anything. For me to type out a storytime just wouldn't do this justice I need to do a podcast and get this all out there. From an MMA perspective it was up there as really one of the most infamous and craziest shows in the history of the sport, even if you don't care about MMA it's still pretty wild story. I'd like to tell the whole thing somehow one day. 

Sign me up to listen to that story Neo Zeed

@ness make this happen. Normally I'd yell at 🤯 to do it but well...ya know retirement and all.

pduh need a new guest for Let's Talk?

Jun 27, 2023 1:15:41 GMT Foos said:

Sign me up to listen to that story Neo Zeed

@ness make this happen. Normally I'd yell at 🤯 to do it but well...ya know retirement and all.

pduh need a new guest for Let's Talk?

If Neo Zeed game, I’m game!

Lets do it man!

I always get a kick out of when Sacha goes on a talk show to tell the story he always says that the show here that night where that was filmed was in the same town of the Jasper, TX where they dragged the black guy to death. That was like 3 hours away from here, that's kind of a big thing to get wrong about a town haha.

Jun 28, 2023 22:11:52 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Let’s do it man!

It’s on like Donkey Kong! 

I'd actually like to stay focused on this whole story with Pduh's podcast if we can, I will promise not to deviate off of the main topic if we can refrain from mentioning PW. I'd like to get this all out there with something I can show to everybody later in real life and I really like having my privacy here without people knowing who I really am. So maybe we can set a date to chat about PW after we get this one in the can?

This really was fucking nuts that this happened and I also have a fun conspiracy theory to attach to it I hope to cover in the end. This happened in June 2008 and was mainstream news story for a day then just forgotten. They held 2 MMA shows here over 2 back to back nights in Texarkana and Ft. Smith Arkansas with 22 fights between the two events and had Sacha Baron Cohen doing live character skits as "Straight Dave" working all the hillbillies in between fights. They were actively trying to incite a riot by getting everybody drunk and mad, there was probably a million dollars there in cameras and lighting rig over the cage(I remember somebody telling me they were the same lights from UFC 84 a couple weeks earlier). 

Not just that but from an MMA perspective looking where the sport is now this show was really fascinating to consider, perhaps the last days of the wild wild west era of the sport, they trucked in some really really good talent those nights and put them against a bunch of 0-0 local guys in massive mismatches in size/experience, gave all the professionally trained guys smaller gloves to boot. I also have come to believe the state athletic commissioner there that night was just a guy pretending to be one, the complete total lack of any regulations or rules like what you have in the sport today is just crazy. It's a hell of a story that needs to be out there for sure, I'd like to tell the whole deal I'm looking forward to it.