I first heard of this individual while training in a famous Las Vegas MMA gym in 2009. I had just bumped into Nate and Nick Diaz in the Miracle Mile Shops in between training sessions. Later that day I was sharing my excitement with my coach where I naïvely made the claim that the Stockton duo were the biggest gangsters in MMA…how very, very (I can’t emphasise enough) very wrong I was. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, “Lightning” Lee Murray.
Early Years
He was born Lee Brahim Murray-Lamrani on 12 November 1977 in Greenwich, London to an English mother and a Moroccan father. Before Lee’s time, the Murray family were relocated following the destruction of their inner city London home in World War II. The Murrays were located, interestingly, near Shooter’s Hill – an area notorious for highway robberies and a breeding ground for professional criminals, especially armed robbers. This had no impact on Lee’s life whatsoever. The end.
Lee’s father, Brahim, decided to stay abroad for the first 7 years of his life – if he only decided to stay away forever, we would probably have a Lee Murray that gets on a tube every morning with a fresh coffee, dressed in a freshly pressed suit on the way to an office job in Canary Wharf…but where’s the fun in that? Brahim, the alcoholic father, beat the living sh*t out of Lee for years. Lee’s best friend, Paul “The Enforcer” Allen, once described Brahim as “a frightening, violent man” who was “volatile and domineering.” I’m sure that you will agree that carries a lot of weight when you hear it from a man nicknamed “The Enforcer”. One day Brahim punched Lee, as was his routine, when Lee finally saw red and knocked him out cold. That moment was a turning point Lee’s life. This was a real life monster for him as a child – the terrifying grown up that he lived in fear of for year. Now he realised that he finally had the power to stop it, like the flick of a switch. Lee’s neighbour heard that this happened and noticed a significant change in his demeanour immediately after stating (in a cockney accent), “once he realised he could take down a big man like that I think that’s what changed Lee into the man he is now – a thug.”
“The gangs filled a void in society, and the void was the absence of family life. The gang became a family.” – Drexel Deal
Let’s do a quick checklist to see if we have the ingredients to make a teenage gangster:
Living in a council estate known as a breeding ground for professional criminals: ✔
Alcoholic parent that beats him for years: ✔
Best friend called “The Enforcer”: ✔
OK we’re good. Perhaps even more tragic than Lee actually joining a gang is the unfortunate name of the gang – “The Buttmarsh Boys”. I know what you’re thinking, these guys are walking around central London in bottomless chaps with switchblades, peacocking for a fight, but you’re wrong – the area was called Buttmarsh. Moving on, Lee and his right hand man, Paul Allen got involved in the drugs game. Weed to coke to crack, wherever the money was at, there they were. He quickly became well known as a violent criminal who had no fear of letting his hands go. Lee himself stated, as bullies often tend to do, “some people would probably say I was a bully, but a bully to me is someone that goes for easy targets and people who can’t fight back. Me, I went for all targets.” As if he should be patted on the back for being a hero of some sort. Fearless and ambitious, Murray swiftly made his way through the London criminal hierarchy. He was earning a lot of money and wasn’t afraid to show it. He started to wear mink coats like his American gangster idols and drove around in a flashy yellow Ferrari.
“He’s a scary son of a b**ch, and I don’t mean fighter wise,” Dana White
When many of his gang associates got ‘nicked’, Murray decided to try his hand at dishing out beatings in a more legal fashion. In his MMA debut, he knocked out Rod Hudson in the first round, earning him the nickname “Lightning”. He had a successful start with three first round victories and even moved to the US to train with famous coach and former UFC Welterweight Champion, Pat Miletich. He trained with some big names at the time and they took notice of the man in their presence. Former UFC Welterweight Champion Robbie Lawler said that when he punched the mitts everyone would stop training and look because it sounded like gunshots.
In 2004, a week away from a fight, Murray was watching a Prince Naseem fight in a pub and some innocent fool decided to stand in front of Murray and refused to move. Murray knocked him unconscious. Then he knocked the man’s friend unconscious. And to tie it all up in a neat little bow, he knocked the bartender unconscious. He broke his hand in two places. When most normal people would pull out of the fight, Murray just decided to wrap his hand up. He won by submission in the first round.
But at a time where I for once wish everyone had a camera phone, Murray shot to fame when he sparked out the then UFC Light Heavyweight World Champion – Tito Ortiz- in a street fight outside a London nightclub. Post UFC 38 in London in July 2002, Murray was with his coach Miletich when one of Tito’s friends, Bowe, jokingly grabbed Miletich in a rear naked choke. One of Miletich’s other students, Tony Fryklund, pulled Bowe off and confronted him verbally but before Bowe could explain that he was joking, in flew Paul “The Enforcer” Allen with a running start, blasting Bowe with a right hand, levelling him. In the blink of an eye, there was an eruption of professional MMA fighters beating the crap out of each other on the street. Not just any MMA fighters, UFC Hall of Famers – Matt Hughes was swinging and even “The Iceman” Chuck Liddell knocked three people out. But they were all side notes because the UFC champion and face of the UFC, Tito Ortiz, threw a punch at Murray. Murray slipped out of the way and according to Matt Hughes and Miletich, hit Tito with five hard, loud punches causing Tito to fall flat on his face and then Murray proceeded to kick him in the head with his steel-toecap boots before Miletich pulled him off. You would think that beating someone to a pulp would get Lee in trouble, oh contraire mon frère, this got him a UFC contract.
In 2004, he won his UFC debut in the first round by submission. Tito sat cage-side, salivating at the idea of getting revenge on his new foe. But that dream was short-lived. Murray’s contract with the UFC was terminated due to Visa complications. It’s a lovely story really. Christmas Day, 2003, Murray was driving with his pregnant wife and young daughter when his car was hit by a Range Rover. According to Lee’s solicitor, “Lee disabled the vehicle, then disabled the driver.” And that’s exactly what he did.
Lee had one more fight in Wembley against arguably the greatest MMA fighter of all time, Anderson “The Spider” Silva. Honestly, I have even more respect for Anderson after watching this fight and the build-up because he knew Lee’s reputation and he never backed down. He beat the crap out of Lee for three rounds and if you want to hear the most hilariously biased commentating from scared British commentators, then give the fight a watch on YouTube. Although it was Anderson who became the Cage Rage Champion on the night, respect for Murray for going the distance with the GOAT-that’s no joke.
Cut from a different cloth
I’m not anything like Lee Murray and I would hope at this point you’re thinking the same thing. If you’re unsure, let me ask you this question – if you got stabbed and your nipple was slashed off in the process, and you were training for a fight in Wembley, would you go out to another party the following week in the same location and get in another fight? Well on September 28 2005, Lee did exactly that and got stabbed in the head and in the heart for his troubles. He actually died three times on the operating table. Do you know anyone who has died three times? Jesus only died once or twice (I’m not sure; I think he just floated off the second time). To quote Lee himself from an interview that he had with MMAWeekly.com, “I got stabbed in the head first. I thought it was a punch. When I felt the blood coming down my face, I just wiped the blood and just continued to fight. Next, I looked down at my chest and blood was literally shooting out of my chest. I looked down, and I knew I had been stabbed in the heart by the way the flow of the blood was coming out of my chest. It was literally flying out of my chest like a yard in-front of me.”
Bank Heist
And now…the real juicy stuff. The stuff that doesn’t just separate you and I from this psychopath, this stuff puts Lee Murray in a category differentiates him from every human being in the history of the planet. A few months after he died multiple times, he decided to carry out the largest bank robbery in the history of the world. I sh*t you not. The largest bank heist in the history of the world.
On 21 February 2006, a Securitas Depot manager named Colin Dickson was pulled over by police for speeding on his way home from work. He was cuffed and put into the back of the squad car. Then another police officer carrying a gun appeared, tied up his legs and blindfolded him. Except as Colin soon found out, they were not really police officers. The mystery men took him to a remote farm in Kent. Two other accomplices, also dressed as police and disguised by a professional makeup artist, went to Dickinson’s home and broke the news t his wife and child that he had been in a road traffic collision and that she should go with them. Before his family know it, they were all tied up in the back of a van and en route to Kent to be kept as hostages with Colin. When the time came, Colin and the family were taken to the Depot by the kidnappers.
This heist had been in the pipeline for quite some time, and groundwork had been done. In the weeks building up to it Ermir Hysenaj, an Albanian immigrant, was sent in to get a job in the Depot by Lee. After a ten minute interview he was in. He used this opportunity to scope the place out with a hidden camera on his belt so they knew exactly where the cash was kept. Using this knowledge and Colin as their means in, Lee & co. entered looking like legitimate police officers and took other employees hostage. This was a legitimate organised robbery. They were armed to the teeth with AK-47s and moved with military precision towards the vault. They backed a large truck up to the loading dock and proceeded to fill it with stacks of cash. The only reason they stopped piling cash onto the truck is because there was no room left in the truck! They left with £53 million or $92 million. Apparently they could have taken four times the amount if they had more trucks.
Lee fled to Morocco. Within ten days of the robbery, five people were charged and millions of pounds recovered. Although Lee was the incredible mastermind behind this robbery, he stupidly stitched himself up. Just days before the bank job, he crashed his yellow Ferrari and left his mobile phone inside. Unbelievably, he had a recording of a phone-call conversation on his phone where he talked about the bank robbery. Luckily, the understated, cautious individual that Lee was, he was already in Morocco keeping his head down. I’m lying. He was driving around in expensive gold cars, bought a million pound mansion, had a mural of his UFC win on the wall, had a statue of himself commissioned and infamously paid for boob jobs for loads of prostitutes.
While Lee was living the high life in Morocco, the UK government were going nuts back home. There was no treaty between the UK and Morocco, and Murray claimed his Moroccan citizenship so they couldn’t get him back to prosecute him. The government was so keen to get their hands on Lee they even offered to trade a terrorist to get him back on home soil. In the meantime back in Morocco, Lee was caught with some cocaine and weed. Police in Morocco try to arrest him, which resulted in Lee promptly sparking a few of them out. He then spent a few months in Moroccan prison but our friend Lee, the glutton for punishment that he is, got caught with a laptop with internet and five kilos of cocaine in his cell. He was sentenced to 7 years.
On the day of his release, Lee was promptly re-arrested because the Brits had agreed to have him tried in Morocco. He got 10 years. Not bad considering he doesn’t have to pay back the debt. Paul Allen AKA “The Enforcer”, his accomplice, was released in 2015 after serving half of his time in the UK. He paid back £420 and said he couldn’t pay any more – even though he was seen driving a convertible Mercedes and had a Rolex forth £45,000. Murray challenged his sentence but the funny thing in Morocco is that your sentence might be reduced but it might also increase. Murray ended up getting 25 years instead of 10.
Don’t worry though he’s still keeping us entertained from his rodent-infested cell. He’s still challenging MMA fighters – not sure what his plan is there. He tried to escape with tiny saws hidden in biscuits in 2009 but another prisoner ratted him out. I’m sure they’re friends now though. He also fathered a child while incarcerated. There’s still over £30 million unaccounted for. One thing is for sure, this story isn’t over.
“Lightning” Lee Murray
Record: 8W(4KOs, 4S), 2L(1S), 1D, 1NC
Years active: 1999-2004
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