It's crazy how good he was.
Even without the Tito/Gangster thing, that fight with Anderson was in a reduced sized octagon, which basically meant they were toe to toe for 5 rounds one fight before Andy flatlined Leben. He mauled Jorge Rivera and tapped him out quick. He KO'd a legend in Pele who was supposed to beat him.
The guy could have, would have, and should have been a great.
I was working late in the area that he got stabbed in and saw the aftermath when I finished. So much blood it looked a lot more people than one had been stabbed... He would have never been the same, hence the robbery... And he got canned because he glasses someone a few months before and had visa issues... Crazy life.
This is a cool interview he did you might remember, and for anyone else interested
MMAWeekly: Lee, first of all, it’s nice to talk to you. That’s something that I think a lot of people didn’t think would ever happen with everything going on with you. Talk about your situation and what happened to you in the streets of London.
Lee Murray: I was at a nightclub. I was with a few of my friends…went to a casino and gambled and went to the club. Did a bit of partying. Come out of the club and there was a big fight that broke out outside the club between a group of guys and some guy that was with a friend of mine. One of my friends got involved in the fight. I tried to help him because about six or seven guys was on one of my friends. That’s when I got stabbed. 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.
MMAWeekly: You just thought you were getting punched? You didn’t even realize you were stabbed until you saw the blood just pouring out of your body?
Murray: Yes. I didn’t feel nothing. I didn’t feel nothing at all. When I saw the blood on my head, I thought someone had punched me in the head because there was about four or five of them on me, and one of them obviously had a big knife. When he stabbed me in the head the blood just came racing down my face. I wiped the blood out away from my face to get it out of my eye and just continued punching. It wasn’t until I looked down at my chest that I see the blood squirting out of my chest that I knew I had been stabbed in the heart. I took my shirt off and put my shirt in the hole and tried to stop the bleeding. I just run off down the road and jumped into some car. I think there was two girls getting into the car leaving the club, and I just jumped in their car and said get me to a hospital quick. I’ve been stabbed in the heart. I didn’t know these girls, and these girls just drove off. These girls saved my life. I went to jump into a taxi first, and the taxi driver, he locked his doors and just raced off. He wouldn’t let me get into his car.
MMAWeekly: So you get with these two girls, you have no idea who they are. They take you to the hospital, and you actually died. Correct?
Murray: Yes. I died three times. What happened was when I jumped in the girls car, they didn’t take me to the hospital because they didn’t know where the hospital was because because they were in central London. What they done, they rung up for an ambulance and the person on the end of the phone said you’re going to have to get to somewhere where we can pick him up from. The girls said they worked in a casino in central London, I’ll take him to the casino and just meet me there. The ambulance met at this casino. The police turn up, and the police were there. The ambulance turned up and they got me out of the car. I was out at this time. I lost so much blood that I was out. I couldn’t remember being there. Then I remember waking up in the ambulance with masks on my face, and I tried to rip the masks off. I didn’t know what was going on. I blacked back out again, and then I woke back up in the hospital on the operating table. One of my friends come charging through and they were shouting at him to get out because the danger of getting an infection. The next minute I was out again, and I woke up in intensive care about two days later.
MMAWeekly: Unbelievable. So, you told me the longest you were dead was for four minutes.
Murray: Yes. I think it was the last time I died. I died three times. The last time I died I was dead for about four minutes. The surgeon said to my family and stuff, he said look because he’s been dead for longer than three minutes, I think, if he recovers there’s a good possibility that he’s going to be brain damaged.
MMAWeekly: Man. And here you are, seriously, weeks later talking to us. The recovery is unbelievable. I mean somebody is looking out for you man because you shouldn’t even be talking to us right now.
Murray: I know. They said to me, if it was the average person they’d be dead. They would have never survived it. They said because you’re an athlete and all the training you put your body through, that’s what saved your life.
MMAWeekly: Usually when you go through something like that you have a life changing, you know, mentally you start seeing the world in a different way. Have you changed your ways now because I know you’ve had hundreds of street fights?
Murray: I think it’s made me stronger mentally. I think it’s made me stronger as a person. I think when I comeback, people were thinking he ain’t going to be able to fight again, and he ain’t going to be as strong as he was. I think I’m going to comeback stronger from this. I think it’s going to make me train harder. All this time I’ve trained, I never put 100% in my training. If I had a fight coming up I’d train eight to ten weeks before the fight, and after the fight I’d go out partying for two months and I wouldn’t train…I never put 100% into my training. I think now, once I’m recovered and I can train properly, I’m going to put 100% into my training. And I think I’m going to comeback as a stronger fighter and a person.
MMAWeekly: We knew you coming into this. You were kind of a legend on the streets being known as a street fighter. Does that keep you away now? I mean are you going to have anymore fights on the street?
Murray: I’ve done that a lot. That’s me. That’s how I was brought up. It’s going to be hard for me to change that.
MMAWeekly: Even after all of this? I mean you almost died. That still doesn’t change you?
Murray: The day is written for when I’m going to die. My day is already written for when I’m going to die, and that’s the way I believe. It’s not changing what I do in my life. I think my day is already written for when I’m going to die and that’s that. I don’t think I can change the way I am. That’s me. If I wasn’t like that I wouldn’t be the fighter I am, and I wouldn’t be who I am.
MMAWeekly: Lee, let me ask you, so rumor has it you’re already training. Are you crazy?
Murray: I’m going training in about, I’m leaving my house in about an hour for training.
MMAWeekly: Wow man. That’s unreal. So what do you do training right now? What are you physically able to do?
Murray: They want me to start a bit of ground work. At the moment all I’ve been doing is pad work and stuff, and some light running, and some light cardio work, body weight exercises. I can’t really doing any heavy weight training at the moment because of my chest, because they broke my sternum. I’ve got a scar all the way down my chest where they broke my sternum to get to my heart. It will probably be after Christmas, the new year before I’ll be able to do some weight training again. — I’ve lost twenty pounds. I only weigh 170 now. On the night I got stabbed I weighed 188-190, and now I weigh 170.
MMAWeekly: As far as fighting goes, and I almost hate to ask this question since you almost died, but let me ask you; obviously you’re training to get into shape, but I’m sure you want to fight again. What are you thinking as far as a time table, a time-line to fight again?
Murray: I want to be fighting April, July.
MMAWeekly: Are you sure?
Murray: I’ll definitely be fighting in July on the Cage Rage.
MMAWeekly: You are crazy Lee. What weight will you be fighting? I know you lost a lot of weight.
Murray: 185. 185. After Christmas, once I start weight training again and doing a bit of heavy weights my weight will go back up. That won’t be a problem. It may take me eight weeks to put the muscle back on properly.
MMAWeekly: You said you aren’t going to change any of your ways. You’re still kind of a street fighter. That’s kind of who you are and what you are. Aren’t you concerned for your family? Aren’t you worried about what happens to you if this happens again and you’re dead for more than four minutes?
Murray: Yes. Obviously I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve got kids and stuff, and it wouldn’t be nice for them to grow up without a dad. Every time I get into a fight on the street, it’s usually when I go out to nightclubs, back to the nightclubs and I usually end up in a fight. Usually it ain’t my fight. It’s one of my friends or someone else and I’m sticking up for someone and I end up getting dragged into the fight. The way I see it, the only way street fighting for me is going to stop is I’m going to have to stop going out to nightclubs which I haven’t gone out to no nightclubs apart from on my birthday. I went out to a club and there was no trouble. I stayed out of trouble. I think the only way for me to not get into a street fight is for me to stop going out clubbing on the weekend.
MMAWeekly: Lee, what does your body physically look like right now? I mean what kind of scars do you have?
Murray: I look like Frankenstein. I look like I’ve been put back together. I’ve got a scar all the way down my chest. I’ve got another scar down from my abdominal muscles. I’ve got like a big round hole, it looks like a gunshot hole, underneath my armpit. I’ve got one on my nipple where I got my nipple cut off. I got stabbed outside the club the week before.
MMAWeekly: Did you just say your nipple got cut off?
Murray: Yeah. I got into a fight outside the same club the week before and got stabbed twice.
MMAWeekly: Lee, what the heck are you doing man? We need your manager to step in, lock this guy up and not let him into nightclubs. You got stabbed twice the week before?
Murray: I got stabbed outside the same club the week before. When my mom heard that I went back to the same club, she went crazy. She went, you got stabbed outside the week before and you went back to the same club? She went, you’re nuts!
MMAWeekly: You are nuts Lee. I’m telling you. Your mom thinks you’re crazy. I think you’re crazy man. Look at you. Oh man. So Lee, as far as fighting goes, you’ll probably take a tuneup fight in April or whatever, who do you want to fight? When you are 100%, when you come back 100%, I know a lot of fans want to see you fight; who do you want to fight?
Murray: When I come back, they’ll probably give me someone, not someone in the top ten. They’ll probably give me probably a warm up or tune up fight first and then my next fight Matt Lindland. He comes screaming and shouting his mouth off saying he wanted to fight, calling me out, and stuff. I think it would be a good fight for me as well. I think his style is perfect for me.
MMAWeekly: Can you fight in the States, or are you restricted? I know you had visa problems.
Murray: It’s going to be hard for me to get back out there. I’ve got people planning and planning. The police won’t let me out there. They won’t let me in the country.
MMAWeekly: That’s what I heard.
Murray: It’s the police. Look. My criminal record ain’t really that bad. Stuff I’ve been convicted for really isn’t that bad. The last time I was convicted of something was about five or six years ago.
MMAWeekly: Well, I hope it all works out for you.
Murray: I’ll keep applying. What it was, when I fought in the UFC, in UFC 46, I was on trial for charges for attempted murder…I didn’t tell them that I had charges outstanding when I went to America. When I come back and I reapplied, they went crazy. They said, you didn’t tell us you were on trial for murder and attempted murder…I said to them so what? I didn’t get charged for it. I got brought to the police station and questioned about it. I said, why have I got to tell you about that for? It ain’t something that I’ve been convicted for. Then I got acquitted of all the charges like a month later.
MMAWeekly: Gotcha. That makes sense then. So they’ve still got to keep you there for now?
Murray: I’m going to reapply soon to see if I can get back to America. I’m just going to say look, I want to go to America for and see what they say.
MMAWeekly: Lee, seriously, I’m glad I’m glad everything is going OK. I know so many people on our SoundOff Forum and other forums really was hoping everything would be OK.
Murray: Yeah. I want to say thanks to all the people. The fans were great. They were supporting me. There were thousands of people supporting me, praying for me, and I really appreciate that. I really appreciate that.
MMAWeekly: Lee, good luck to you. It’s always a pleasure. One of my favorite moments of the MMAWeekly SoundOff Radio was when Phil Baroni came on and he was talking…
Murray: I was supposed to fight Phil in December.
MMAWeekly: Really?
Murray: I think they signed the night I got stabbed. I think they signed the fight that night or the night before for me to fight Phil in Cage Rage December 1st.
MMAWeekly: Really?
Murray: Yeah. I was stabbed and had to pull out of the fight. They replaced me with Mark Weir, and now I think Baroni has pulled out of the fight for some reason. I’m not sure.
MMAWeekly: Would you like to fight Phil?
Murray: Yeah. No problem. Once I’m 100% again, yeah.
MMAWeekly: That would be a fun fight man.
Murray: It’s one of those fights that has got to happen. Everyone wants to see it, and it’s going to happen whether it be in Cage Rage, Pride, the UFC, whatever.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/11861681/Screen_Shot_2018_07_30_at_3.38.47_PM.png)
