machete squad hq

This is the first post of a monthly series I am going to start about interesting people of all shapes and sorts that I think are worthy of reading about.  Everyone from scientists to authors to military figures to fighters to poets…  We’ll see what shakes out.  Lets get started.

This, is Lee “Lightning” Murray.

Murray circa 2004

Lee Murray is a renaissance man of sorts.  He’s fought in the UFC, knocked out an ex-UFC champ in a streetfight, sold drugs, robbed a security depot for 92.5 million dollars in bank notes….  Yup, renaissance indeed.

You see Lee is a simple man with simple tastes.  Namely, fighting, committing felonies and drinking as well as any combination of said three.  Starting as a smalltime gangbanger in the UK with the Barney Boys gang of the Barnfield Housing Projects, Murray made a quick name for himself as a brawler with his buddy and fellow professional fighter Mark Epstein.  He turned pro in 1999 and amassed a 8-2-1 record before certain events began to transpire that complicated things just a bit.  That may seem like a bit of a lackluster record but consider this little factoid: he was the last fighter to take Anderson Silva, widely regarded as the best p4p mixed martial artist on the planet, to a decision until last year when Silva went for five excruciatingly boring rounds with unheralded Thales Leites.  He was outclassed throughout the fight but he stood tough with a guy who has made some of the best in the world look like amateurs.

Lee was born a hustler though and when he was in his heyday in MMA the sport didn’t exactly pay well and following his UFC debut submission victory over veteran Jorge Rivera, things got even more complicated.

Murray submitting Rivera at UFC 46

Murray’s range rover was struck by another vehicle while Murray’s wife and daughter were in the vehicle…  As you can imagine, this situation was not ideal.  His lawyer had this to say about the incident, “Lee disabled the vehicle, then disabled the driver.”  His UFC contract was understandably not honored.  Did I mention he came out for his UFC debut in a Hannibal Lecter mask?  No?  Well, yeah he did.

Hi, I'm Lee and I am a serious athlete.

Further awesomeness of his legend include him fighting off three attackers at his favorite London drinking spot during which he allegedly lost his left nipple.  Undeterred from his two favorite activities – drinking and fighting – Murray went back to the spot a week later.

In wonderful Murray fashion, another brawl erupted after Murray was ambushed and some thirty people armed with knives and their bare hands went at it.  According to friends, Murray was bleeding heavily from the chest due to a severed artery.  He managed to escape the melee and collapsed at a train station where paramedics found him.  According to friends, he basically died three times that night in the hospital and upon awakening, he wrote one word down on a piece of paper: warrior.

However, his most enduring bit of folk legend is his famous run in with Tito “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” in the now infamous London alley brawl.  Murray allegedly knocked out the then UFC Light Heavyweight Champion outside of a nightclub following UFC 38 in London, England.  According to eye witnesses Pat Miletich and Matt Hughes, both former UFC Champions, Murray easily dodged a left hook from Ortiz and knocked him out cold with a combination and followed up with some good natured stomping on Ortiz’s massive cranium.  After Miletich and teammate Tony Fryklund finally pulled Murray off of him, he reportedly said “I’m sorry, I’ll see you later.” and left….  It’s important to remember that this sort of thing was hardly new to Murray.  The fact that Tito was a WORLD CHAMPION didn’t seem to make much of an impression on him.

Tito Ortiz, ex-UFC LHW Champ

So there you have it.  The debut O.G. of Machete Squad HQ.  A street fighter and hustler missing a left nipple that almost got away with 92 million dollars and ended up with an ESPN story, a Hollywood feature film, and a legend among the MMA community only surpassed by the legendary Giant Silva.

True. Mixed. Martial. Arts.

He is currently under arrest in Britain after extradition from Morocco where he attempted to saw his way out of his jail cell after being caught with a working laptop and five kilos of drugs…  I couldn’t make this shit up.  He has played it pretty coy with authorities over his involvement in the robbery but current estimates of his prison term would have him out by age 40 with some 60 million dollars in banknotes still unaccounted for

For more detailed information on Murray and his involvement in the heist and his fighting career, check out the ESPN Article on Lee.