Aftermath of the riot. Videos of the riot after the jump.
While you were up last night planning your totally original “My girlfriend is pregnant” Facebook post, our friends across the pond were trading punches at a Lockdown MMA event. Unfortunately, the action wasn’t confined to just the cage, as unruly fans decided to ignore live event etiquette and fight among themselves. And when British people actually ignore etiquette, my god do they ignore etiquette.
This wasn’t your “Drunk, Affliction wearing fauxhawk guy trades telegraphed haymakers with drunk, Silver Star wearing tribal tattoo guy” brawl that you occasionally see at live events. This was a full blown riot that saw fans throwing bottles and chairs at each other for several minutes. Fortunately, a Cagepotato reader (who wishes to remain anonymous) tipped us off as to what started the riot, which is available after the jump.
I’ve found out the event was called ‘MMA Lockdown’.
Having found this I now know that the promotion’s owner (Will Burke) is also a coach at Manchester Predators, unfortunately for him the main group of offenders last night trained with/were supporting….Manchester Predators!
Will quotes ‘This is not an ordinary MMA show – Lockdown plan on bringing something fresh to the table in 2012 and provide something you will never forget’. And this was true but for all the wrong reasons.
At a guess I’d say there were around 250 people watching (as usual 95% male audience 5% plastic over-tanned WAGS).
The violence just erupted when John Mann from Daywalkers MMA dominated his fight from start to his Guillotine finish in the 2nd. Chairs and bottles started being thrown and the whole place just emptied apart from 30 lads and bouncers beating the s**t out if each other.
Each time it seemed to calm down something sparked it back up again. It only stopped when the police arrived and most of the lads smashed through the fire exit to escape.
By the way, our reader censored “shit”, not us. Classy.
And now for one last picture of the aftermath.
UPDATE: Lockdown MMA has released a statement about the incident on their Facebook page:
Thanks to everyone who helped build and run the show last night. I can only apologise for the unfortunate early end to the show due to a few drunken yobs who decided to ruin it for everybody. Those involved should be utterly ashamed not just for last night, but for being such inferior and unfortunate human beings. Thankfully nobody was hurt, nevertheless there will be a lot of changes to the next …event to ensure that this NEVER happens again. I am especially upset for James Adamson, Dave Toole, Ashley Herrett and Rick Lawanson whose months of hard work was shamefully destroyed by events last night, I can only apologise as I know how gutted you all are after all the months of work you had put in. Will