LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Crowds in Arkansas came for the lure of cage fighting and $1 beer, but police say the producers of two shows last month only wanted to film an audience enraged by men ripping each others’ clothes off and kissing.

The June shows, one in Texarkana, the other in Fort Smith, came as a new movie featuring Sacha Baron Cohen of “Borat” fame is due out next year.

Texarkana police Capt. Mark Lewis said the June 5 show at the Four States Fair Grounds would have been staffed by officers from his department. However, Lewis said a telephone conversation with a man identifying himself as one of the show’s producers raised questions when the producer asked for as many as 10 plainclothes officers to be on hand.

Four officers ended up heading over to the event, but were asked to sign release and liability waivers — something that threw up another “red flag,” Lewis said.

“As our officers began investigating a little more, they found there were going to be plants in the audience and the reason for the plants was to incite — I’ll call it an adverse reaction, a potentially violent reaction from members of the audience,” Lewis said. The department “found some of the things they were going to do were probably not in keeping with some of the standards required for our officers to work the event.”

Fair grounds president and CEO Dwight Duncan said the Texarkana show, entitled “Red, White and Blood Cage Fighting,” closed down early. He said officials had no inkling of the fight night’s true intention, since the fair grounds held another fight put on by the same promoter that went fine.

Duncan declined to speak further about the incident, first reported Sunday by the Texarkana Gazette newspaper.

“We had a contract for cage fighting. We were deceived,” Duncan said.

In Fort Smith, the city’s convention center hosted “Blue Collar Brawlin”’ the next night. Fort Smith police Sgt. Adam Holland said 18 off-duty police officers provided security at the event.

During preparations, Holland said organizers told him a character named “Straight Dave” would goad a planted audience member into the ring for a fight. The two men would then wrestle, rip away some of their clothes and share a brief kiss reminiscent of one between Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell in the film “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.”

Producers said “there would be a romantic embrace,” Holland said. “They said it was kind of to essentially make fun, poke fun at wrestling — two guys rolling around on the floor, all sweaty.”

Instead, an elaborate array of mounted and handheld video cameras caught the crowd of 1,600’s reaction as the two men “went right up to the line” of the city’s morality laws, Holland said. The two men stripped down to their underwear, kissed and rubbed on each other, the sergeant said.

The audience, as well as local fighters drawn to take part in the show, became enraged.

“It set the crowd off lobbing beers,” Holland said. “They had beers in plastic cups. Those things can get some distance on them actually.”

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

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