Blood, Sweat, Hate: MMA's festering neo-Nazi problem
Extremists are using the sport’s counter-culture mystique to radicalize disenfranchised young men and to provide them a shared space to spread hate. Meanwhile, the UFC is also profiting off hate.
Welcome to Sports Politika, a newsletter and media platform focused on the intersection of sports, power and politics. This newsletter was founded by investigative journalist and researcher Karim Zidan and relies on the support of readers like you.
If you have not done so already, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Niklas Stolze was out of breath, having just completed a training session at La Onda Fight Club in Magdeburg, Germany when he picked up the phone and said he was finally ready to address his past association with German neo-Nazis.
“I’ve been dealing with this shit for years now,” Stolze told me on the phone last year. “It’s time to speak about it.”
Stolze detailed his journey to become one of the few German mixed martial arts fighters, and his signing by the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the most prominent MMA organization, in 2020. That journey included, on the advice of his manager, fighting for a team run by a notorious German neo-Nazi as he progressed from amateur to professional.
The reason? The neo-Nazi, Benjamin Brinsa, was one of the most experienced mixed martial arts fighters in the entire country. “If you have 5 to 6 MMA fighters in all of Germany who can help you because they are a little bit better than you, and then you have to cherry pick because you cannot train with him for this reason or because this guy is doing that,” Stolze asked.
He added: “Back in the day, I didn’t give a shit what anyone was saying, I just wanted to get some good training partners. But now, I wouldn’t do this.”
The intertwining of Stolze and Brinsa’s careers is a cautionary tale of how easy it is for mixed martial arts fighters to find themselves entangled with extremists on their quest to make a living from the sport. It also underscores the deep association between MMA and the far right, and the challenge for mixed martial arts organizations that recruit fighters from around the world and may not be familiar with the local politics everywhere.
According to interviews with several extremism researchers, MMA gyms have proven to be attractive recruiting grounds for the far right.
Extremists have used the sport’s counter-culture mystique to entice and radicalize disenfranchised young men and to provide them a shared space to spread their ideology. They have also used the sport to whitewash their activities and normalize their existence, primarily through interweaving themselves into local fight scenes and culture, as is evidenced from Stolze’s experience with Brinsa.
The regional nature of far right influence in combat sports raises concerns about how prominent MMA organizations such as the UFC can regulate instances of hate, how seriously they vet fighters and what they should be doing to limit the influence of hate in their sport.
Sparring with a neo-Nazi
Stolze’s troubles began in 2012 when he attended a seminar hosted by German heavyweight fighters Andreas Kraniotakes and Peter Sobotta. “That is where I met Benjamin Brinsa,” Stolze said.
Known by his nickname “The Hooligan,” at the time Brinsa was actively fighting on the regional circuit. He was also a hooligan outside the cage, participating in attacks among gangs of rival soccer fans. Brinsa also ran a mail-order service for neo-Nazi metal music and was an influential figure in the Germany’s budding far right ideologue.
The next year Brinsa was signed by the UFC, but his contract was terminated a few weeks later after reports surfaced that he was a member of the Leipzig-based far-right hooligan group Scenario LOK. Brinsa denied the allegations, arguing at the time that he was the victim of a smear campaign and that “I am not a neo-Nazi, never have been, never will be.”
Brinsa was welcomed back to the gym in Magdeburg, and he helped Stolze practice jiu-jitsu and become a more well-rounded fighter. Stolze made his MMA debut for Brinsa’s Imperium Fighting Championships, and fought a total of five times for the extremist’s organization between 2014-16.
Meanwhile, Brinsa’s influence within the German far-right scene continued to grow. In 2018, the extremist was pictured holding a knife and attempting to intimidate anti-fascists during a rally in Wurzen, a town in the Leipzig district. He has also mobilized rallies against refugees across Germany and has reportedly used his fight club to intimidate demonstrators at anti-racist rallies.
“There is no question that Brinsa is a neo-fascist hooligan,” said Robert Claus, an extremism researcher and author of Hooligans: A world between football, violence and politics. “He is proven to be deeply rooted in the fascist hooligan scene in Eastern Germany, and can be considered one of their leading figures.”
Brinsa has not responded to Sports Politika’s request for comment.
On the recommendation of his manager Tim Leidecker — who also managed Brinsa during his short-lived UFC tenure — Stolze continued to train with Brinsa because he was one of the country’s most experienced MMA fighters.
It was only when Stolze signed with the UFC in July of 2020 that his longstanding affiliation with Brinsa resurfaced. “Then all this shit blew up again and we finally split from Brinsa,” Stolze said.
The newly signed fighter was quick to react, releasing a series of statements across his social media platforms distancing himself from Imperium Fight Team. Stolze’s efforts paid off and the fighter made his UFC debut later that month. And yet, his past dealings with Brinsa—dealings he claims was the result of being young and ambitious—continued to haunt him.
According to Claus, it is difficult to prove whether Stolze’s tale is true, though he admits the former UFC fighter is not comparable to proven neo-Nazis like Brinsa. “As far as I know, Stolze has no history of far-right violence. That is the reason why I think Stolze is not the same thing as Benjamin Brinsa,” he explained.
As far back as Dec. 2009, the UFC has had to tangle with issues of fighters’ beliefs, associations and clothing. That month UFC newcomer Joe Brammer walked into the octagon wearing a black t-shirt emblazoned with two iron crosses—a famous German military medal now commonly used as hate symbols by neo-Nazis—along with a smattering of skulls and slogans such as “Strength & Honor.” It was from the clothing brand Helzer Reich, which was known for propagating neo-Nazi symbols.
While Hoelzer Reich vehemently denied any neo-Nazi affiliation, Zuffa barred fighters from being sponsored by Hoelzer Reich, ending the brand’s associations with notable fighters like Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone.
Four years later, after the UFC terminated Brinsa’s contract, UFC boss Dana White admitted the organization does not do “investigations on guys from Germany that sign with us.”
“What happens is if we sign a guy, and something like this starts to surface, then we dive in and do our homework and then make a decision from there,” White said on a Google Hangout hosted by Fox Sports in 2013. “You can’t really know everybody you sign.”
Claus, the extremism researcher, disagreed. “The UFC is not responsible for every neo-Nazi hooligan who is doing MMA in Eastern Germany,” he said. “That is not the business of the UFC. What the UFC is responsible for is who they are contracting, and who they are working with. That is something they can influence and can control.”
The UFC declined requests to interview executives for this story or to provide a comment about Stolze or Brinsa.
This is not just a problem for the UFC. Bellator, once the second-largest mixed martial arts organization in North America, rescinded a contract offer to heavyweight Georgi Valentinov in 2019 after it was reported that he was a member of the far-right extremist hooligan club Sofia West.
Then, less than a week before the 2020 presidential election, Bellator signed heavyweight Brandon Calton, a former collegiate football player who had a short stint with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2004-05. Calton appeared on the Bellator telecast sporting a tattoo on his right shin belonging to the Three Percenters, a far-right militia movement, some of whose members have been charged in the Capitol attack. Though Bellator appears to have quietly parted ways with Calton, the organization has ignored requests for comment on him.
While some of these, and other, incidents may reflect human error and the difficulty of running an organization that spans the globe, they also underscore the concerted efforts of far-right extremists to normalize their ideologies by competing in mainstream mixed martial arts organizations.
Fascist Fight Clubs
From the beginning, Robert Rundo has had one goal: weaponize mixed martial arts to reinvent white supremacy.
Rundo rose to prominence in 2017 when he began instigating violence with those opposing their ultra-nationalist ideology at political rallies alongside members the Rise Above Movement—a California-based white supremacist group that touted itself as the “premier MMA fight club of the alt-right.” The group, which Rundo co-founded, infiltrated protests in Huntington Beach, Calif., Berkeley, Calif. and the “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
While several of Rise Above Movement’s most prominent members were indicted on rioting charges related to the Unite The Right rally, Rundo’s case was dismissed and he left the United States to reside in Eastern Europe, where he began encouraging his followers to form their own “Active Clubs,” a term he coined to describe localized fascist fight clubs that prioritize physical preparedness for an upcoming revolution, identity formation, white supremacist activism, and the recruitment of disenfranchised white men to their cause.
In March 2021, a federal appeals court reinstated the federal charges against Rundo, allowing the government to resume prosecution. In January 2023, prosecutors issued a new superseding indictment alleging that Rundo and several associates committed assaults as several political rallies in early 2017. Exactly two years later, Romanian authorities arrested Rundo after US officials requested his extradition to the United States to stand trial on federal rioting charges.
Yet in another twist of fate, federal judge Cormac Carney dismissed the charges against Rundo and a co-defendant in February 2024, citing “selective prosecution” by singling out RAM members without likewise bringing charges against “members of Antifa and related far-left groups.”
Rundo is currently in federal custody pending the government's appeal, after a new warrant for his arrest was secured following an emergency motion. However, his network of fight clubs continues to sustain itself.
Since launching his decentralized fight club concept in 2020, Sports Politika has found active clubs peppered across the United States (Colorado, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pittsburgh, and Florida) and in Canada and Europe. To date, the clubs have focused on small-scale training sessions and spreading white supremacist propaganda in their local towns.
There is a case to be made that these fascist fight clubs are likely to survive without Rundo. MMA and combat sports’ idolization of hyper-masculinity, its penchant for violence, and its emphasis on wellness based lifestyles is well suited to far-right groups whose members object to progressive society’s supposed decadence and degeneration. MMA’s training regimen is also appealing to members of far-right groups because it offers them structured tutelage that they believe is necessary to defend their homeland.
Meanwhile, the UFC continues to capitalize on a roster that includes bigots and chauvinists, granting them not only headlining positions but also a significant platform to propagate hate. This decision to platform and profit from hate has had a lasting effect on the entire sport, especially since Rundo’s success is rooted in his ability to tap into the UFC’s popularity and use it as a pipeline for funnelling fans of the violent sport into full-fledged fascists.
“Think of something that’s popular and make your own counter-culture from it,” Rundo said in a video explaining how to start clubs. “Think of your target audience. How many high school kids do you know who actually attend political debates? Not that many. How many watch UFC? A shit ton do.”
Sports Politika is a newsletter about the intersection of sports, power and politics. If you like what you see, upgrade to a paid subscription ( or gift a subscription if you already have your own). We would appreciate if you could also like the post and let us know what you think in the comment section below.