Baron Cohen winds up cage-fighting fans

Sacha Baron Cohen has been at it again - this time enraging fans at an Arkansas cage fight by staging a display of gay kissing.

The unsuspecting audience had been lured to the Blue Collar Brawlin’ contest with the promise of $1 beer, ‘hot chicks’and ‘hardcore fights’.

But both nights ended with two male grapplers tearing each other's clothes off and kissing each other passionately,

The scene caused mayhem, as hundreds of angry fans threw chairs and beer into the ring, as the men ran to safety.

Organisers had invited police, tipping them off that a character named Straight Dave would goad a planted audience member into the ring for a fight, only to end up in a ‘romantic embrace’.

But the officers were apparently shocked at what they saw, which they say went ‘went right up to the line’ of local morality laws.

It took them 45 minutes to clear the arena in Fort Smith of fans, who had been warned the event was being filmed. They were also not allowed in with cameras or cell phones and some were asked to sign release forms.

The venue was not happy with the outcome, with Dwight Duncan, president of the Four States Fair Grounds, saying: ‘We had a contract for cage fighting. We were deceived.’

Posting on a martial arts bulletin board, one fan admitted the footage was ‘going to make [us] look like hicks, but at least we aren’t cocksuckers like Borat’.

A spokesman for Baron Cohen maintained his usual silence over whether or not the star was behind last month’s prank, but he is currently filming undercover as his latest creation, Bruno, a camp Austrian fashion reporter.

The Blue Collar Brawlin' web site was registered two weeks before the event in the name of ‘Peto Philer’ of Algeria.

For his last film, Baron Cohen's alter ego Borat caused outrage at a rodeo with a mangled version of The Star Spangled Banner.

Published: 9 Jul 2008