Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen in cage fighting prank
By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor
Last Updated: 8:20PM BST 08/07/2008
Sacha Baron Cohen has struck again - this time hijacking an Arkansas cage fighting contest with a display of gay kissing.

The unsuspecting audience who turned up for the Blue Collar Brawlin' event, lured by the promise of $1 beer, expected a night of old fashioned fisticuffs.

What they got was two men stripping down to their underwear, kissing and "rubbing one another", according to local police.

The men - believed to be actors - were then forced to run for their lives as the 1,600-strong crowd pelted them with beer and chairs.

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"We had a contract for cage fighting. We were deceived," said Dwight Duncan, president of the Four States Fair Grounds which provided the venue.

A spokesman for Baron Cohen declined to say whether he was behind the prank.

But the comedy star is currently in the US filming undercover as his latest creation, Bruno, a camp Austrian fashion reporter. A Bruno film is due in cinemas later this year.

Posters for Blue Collar Brawlin' promised: "Hot Chicks, Cold Beer, Hardcore Fights" and were accompanied by pictures of a scantily clad woman.

Organisers of the event had invited police to attend and tipped 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" similar to the one between Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell in the film Talladega Nights.

"They said it was to essentially poke fun at wrestling - two guys rolling around on the floor, all sweaty," said Fort Smith police sergeant Adam Holland.

The officers thought they were in on the joke, but were not prepared for what followed.

The man-on-man display "went right up to the line" of the city's morality laws, Sgt Holland said.

"It set the crowd off lobbing beers. They had beers in plastic cups. Those things can get some distance on them actually."

Sgt Holland said it took officers about 45 minutes to clear the venue, as the two actors sprinted away through a specially set-aside tunnel.

Those in attendance were told by several signs on display that they would be filmed, and signed waivers before the event.

The cage fighting fans are not the first to fall for a Baron Cohen trick.

Bruno also duped a former Mossad agent and a Palestinian academic into a spoof interview on the Middle East conflict, asking them to explain the difference between Hamas and hummus.

Baron Cohen's last alter ego, Kazakhstani journalist Borat, also acquainted himself with the American people.

He led patrons of a bar in Tucson, Arizona, in a rendition of 'Kazakh folk song' Throw The Jew Down The Well, in scenes which later appeared in the film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

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