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On Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone discusses the slur about Michelle Obama at the UFC event and how rhetoric like it went from the right-wing media ecosystem to the White House lawn | Media Matters for America

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On his Rumble and YouTube show, Fight Back, MMA fighter-turned-antisemitic podcaster Jake Shields interviewed ex-Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. During the show, Shields denied being a “white nationalist” while declaring that “we’re doing way too much immigration,” and that “we should stay a majority-white country.”

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UFC figures have found a home for their bigotry and conspiracy theories in right-wing media

WRITTEN BY NOAH DOWE

PUBLISHED 06/13/24

Right-wing media have amplified conspiracy theories and bigotry from Ultimate Fighting Championship figures including UFC President Dana White and a number of high-profile fighters.

In doing so, these media platforms have mirrored former President Donald Trump's efforts to use the prizefighting league to boost his 2024 campaign. They’ve also provided a megaphone for White and his current and former fighters — some of whom have expressed support for QAnon and claimed the U.S. government orchestrates mass shootings — to espouse racism, anti-LGBTQ bigotry, false claims of election fraud, and a claim that Pfizer-sponsored athletes are “taking handouts from the devil.”

Select a UFC figure

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one of the hazards of participating in racially motivated extremist activity is getting banned from U.S. military facilities — as David Fair can attest.

Fair is no longer “allowed to enter military bases,” according to a disclosure he made during chat sessions on the encrypted messaging app Telegram that caters to racist skinheads in the United States and Europe.

“I honestly don’t know if it’s the fact that I’m the leader of a white nationalist group or January 6th involvement,” Fair elaborated in a voice chat posted in the channel, which Raw Story has reviewed. “Trying to figure it out myself. I don’t know what to tell my boss. Which one’s worse?”

ALSO READ:Nazis bullied a conservative Tennessee town. Locals punched back. Trump should be worried.

Fair did not respond to emails requesting comment for this story. It is not clear how he learned about the ban or what type of work he does that might require him to visit military bases. He lives near Fort Jackson, a military installation near Columbia, S.C., that provides basic training to more than 45,000 soldiers entering the Army each year.

The Department of Defense did not respond to inquiries from Raw Story about why Fair, who is not a member of the military, was banned from military bases.

Fair leads the South Carolina-based Southern Sons Active Club, which is part of the burgeoning network of neo-Nazi groups that emphasize brotherhood and mixed-martial arts training. These “active clubs” also work to indoctrinate young men in the white supremacist conspiracy theory that white people are facing genocide.

Southern Sons Active Club also has a presence in North Carolina and Georgia.

Most of these active clubs outwardly present a more sanitized version of white nationalism by generally refraining from overt displays of Nazi symbolism, such as the swastika. They also have worked alongside the Proud Boys — a group with complicated racial politics that accepts men of color while also harboring members who embrace Nazism — and harassed drag shows and other LGBTQ events.

Fair’s group is less guarded than others in its ideological signaling: Photos distributed on its public channel on the encrypted messaging app Telegram show members giving Hitler salutes.

Beyond his involvement in the active club network, part of the so-called “white nationalism 3.0 model,” Fair is a self-avowed fan of racist skinhead culture, a throwback to the 1980s and 1990s, before the 19-year-old man was born.

ALSO READ:Trump’s voice is hawking ‘gold bars’ on YouTube. But is it really Trump?

Fair’s presence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 is not a secret, but there’s no evidence that he violated any laws beyond being on restricted Capitol grounds — an offense that the Department of Justice typically does not prosecute, with some rare exceptions.

Regardless of whether Fair’s presence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 played a role in his getting banned from military bases, discussion of Fair’s situation among members of the Telegram chat indicates that it was a relatable predicament for other extremists.

For example, Vassilios Pistolis, a white supremacist who was formerly active with the now-defunct Traditionalist Worker Party and Atomwaffen, disclosed in the chat that he has been banned from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Pistolis was court-martialed and ultimately discharged from the U.S. Marine Corps for assaulting antiracist counter-protestors at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.

Non-military civilians typically have access to military bases for a range of activities including contract work and services such as deliveries and heating and air-conditioning maintenance.

The military has been slow to take action against active-duty members charged with criminal offenses for their participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection. But the Tennessee Valley Authority — a federally owned utility — banned William Beals, a union carpenter, from its facilities after learning he was present at the Capitol on Jan. 6, as exclusively reported by Raw Story.

More than two years later, the FBI arrested him and charged him with theft of U.S. property, as well as violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.

Tyler Dykes, a Marine Corps veteran who was briefly involved with the Southern Sons Active Club earlier this year, was arrested in July and charged with assaulting law enforcement and other alleged violations related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

IFrame Content

*David Fair appears in the top row, second from left, in a composite photo published by Atlanta Antifascists.

Prior to his arrest by the FBI, Dykes served time in jail for crimes related to his participation in a torch march on the eve of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.

It is not clear whether Dykes and Fair knew each other on Jan. 6, but no evidence has surfaced that Fair was with Dykes that day.

Instead, Fair walked to the Capitol with his mother, Christina Praser-Fair, according to an account she gave to WLTX News 19. “We got to the Capitol building, there was already a ton of people there,” Praser-Fair told the news station. “We were right next to the scaffolding.”

A photo included in the news report shows Fair wearing a red Trump 2020 hat and dental braces, while holding a Vietnamese American Freedom and Heritage flag and standing in front of the risers erected on the west side of the Capitol for Joe Biden’s inauguration.

A local news story shows Fair with his family at then-President Donald Trump’s January 2017 inauguration, giving his age as 12 at that time. He recently announced that he was celebrating his birthday on Telegram. Based on that metric, he would have been 16 at the time of the insurrection, and 17 when he helped found Southern Sons Active Club in the summer of 2022.

‘Act the fascist part’

During an interview with a white nationalist podcaster in January, Fair pitched an approach to talking about white power ideology to friends and neighbors — one he asserted would avoid tripping alarm bells.

“If you’re talking to a person, politics comes, up you don’t need to say, ‘Oh yeah, I’m a national socialist, like you know, Hitler from Germany,’” he said. “I would just tell people, ‘Yeah, I’m a nationalist. I love my nation. I love the people in it. And I’m proud to be who I am.’ And nobody on Earth — even non-white people — they won’t get mad at hearing that.”

But to the podcast audience, he made no effort to conceal who he was.

“Act the fascist part,” Fair urged. “Don’t just say you’re a fascist. Become a fascist. Or national socialist, or pro-white, identitarian, whatever you consider yourself to be — act the part.”

Fair has evangelized for his racist beliefs off-line, too.

For example, Southern Sons Active Club has actively networked with other far-right groups.

ALSO READ:Big money for top Democrat stolen: federal records

They joined forces with the Proud Boys to protest the drag show in Florence, S.C., in September 2022.

They appeared at a flash rally outside the headquarters of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., with Tennessee Active Club, which is led by Sean Kauffmann, who recently garnered notoriety for attaching himself to the mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson in Franklin, Tenn.

And members of Southern Sons Active Club collaborated with the neo-fascist group Patriot Front on stickering runs and hand-to-hand combat training, according to their Telegram channel.

Southern Sons Active Club allows its members to join other white power groups, Fair said in the podcast interview.

“You can join any group you want because this is your brotherhood, this is your family, and if you want to do the national thing, go ahead,” he said. “We’re still your brothers.” He added only one caveat: “You can get in touch with any other guy as long as it’s not some terrorist group, you know.”

But Fair’s efforts to distance Southern Sons Active Club from terrorism is belied by a message on the group’s Telegram channel recommending that followers “read the 88 precepts of David Lane.”

Lane was a member of the neo-Nazi terrorist group the Order who authored the seminal text of the modern white power movement while serving a 190-year prison sentence for his role in the 1984 murder of Jewish talk-radio host Alan Berg.

ALSO READ:George Santos’ potential replacement also has financial ethics issues

Beyond pushing fitness and self-improvement, the Southern Sons Active Club channel salts in messaging with an aggressive edge, with phrases such as, “Mark your territory,” “We win by dominating physical space,” and, “Total victory or total death.”

While Southern Sons Active Club has been relatively dormant over the past eight months since its members were exposed in the Atlanta Antifa report, Fair has been talking about reviving the group.

In a message posted on the Telegram chat frequented by racist skinheads, Fair said he is “planning on traveling the entire Carolinas and Georgia on a grand tour of sorts meeting with our guys to build up more support.”

He specifically mentioned interest in convening an in-person meeting of Southern Sons Active Club members and other white supremacists in Charlotte, N.C., although he appears to have not settled on a date. Last weekend, he joined a friend in Atlanta and pledged to put up Southern Sons Active Club stickers.

In his posts on the Telegram chat for racist skinheads, Fair is open about his abuse of alcohol, and in one recent post he wrote, “Literally me,” in reaction to a meme about drinking and driving. And he presents himself as someone willing to confront people he views as his adversaries, writing in one message that he has “troll”-ed Radical Hebrew Israelites, an antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ group whose membership is predominantly Black.

The day before Fair announced that he had been banned from military bases, he said he planned to go to his local Waffle House and harass a trangender employee.

“I’m thinking maybe like just harassing the f---ing t----- or making a big scene out of it,” he said. “I don’t know. I got like five dudes on board with me, so we can probably do something funny if y’all can think of something.”

Last month, he announced in the chat at 10:14 p.m. on the Saturday after Thanksgiving that he was at Waffle House on “hour something of being drunk,” and said he was “tempted” to start a fight. More than four hours later, he announced that he “got home safe” and was “Booz cruising again.”

Fair posted a video of himself driving that referenced getting “socked in the jaw,” but it’s not clear exactly what happened during his visit to Waffle House, although he appears to have avoided any entanglements with law enforcement.

Commenting on a former Southern Sons Active Club member who apparently failed to demonstrate sufficient mettle, Fair reflected on the qualities he values in his fellow white supremacists.

“Honestly, at the current state of our scene it almost takes a criminal mind to keep going sometimes,” he said. “I don’t say criminal mind to say we are dangerous lads. But it takes a certain mindset — an ability to be ready to do anything.”

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“You talk about the great replacement theory and people are — oh, you know, people get very upset when you talk about it, but just look at the math,” Bannon answered.

“It’s not a theory,” Carlson interjected.

“This has happened across Europe,” Bannon continued. “It's happened in Germany.”

“In 100 years, there'll be a minority of Irish people in Ireland,” Carlson said. “That's a big change, and it's on purpose.”

Later in their conversation, Bannon endorsed mass deportations, saying: “I think illegal alien invaders are coming because they've gamed the asylum system. My belief is those people have to go home. They have to be returned, they have to leave our country or we're not going to have a country.”

Later that day, Bannon appeared on Donald Trump Jr.’s Triggered to celebrate Hungary’s far-right authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán and Irish mixed martial arts fighter Connor McGregor, who had come under police investigation following anti-migrant social media posts.

Video

CitationFrom the November 27, 2023, edition of Triggered, streamed on Rumble

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https://www.alternet.org/markwayne-mullin-2666288268/

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a night of canvasing begins with a group of angry, white men.

Dressed in matching T-shirts and hoodies emblazoned with the phrase “Active Club,” the masked white nationalists wield a starter pack of extremist paraphernalia: stickers that read “FCK ANTIFA” and “Defend the White Race,” posters promoting a “nationalist lifestyle,” stencils etched with racist slogans, and black spray paint. They disperse, plastering stickers on lamp posts, billboards, and the occasional statue. They replace Black Lives Matter slogans with smatterings of hate messages and promises to “reclaim America.”

Among the scattered propaganda is a blue poster imploring readers to start their own active clubs—spaces for white men to train in combat while openly embracing white nationalism through street activism and publicity stunts.  “Now is all we have,” read the poster. “Join the fight.”

Various videos and photos posted online by the group show this scene play out over and over again. You might even have seen these posters across small-town USA: Seymour, Indiana; Coeur d’Alene Idaho; Cheyenne, Wyoming—or even across cities like Denver and Philadelphia. These calls to actions are not the work of misguided teenagers but the persistent effort ofinfamous white nationalists like Robert Rundo, who spent years sowing the seeds of hate while building a global following for his neo-Nazi fight-club initiatives.

By using combat sports as a medium to recruit, radicalize, and discipline white nationalists disenfranchised by mainstream conservative politics, Rundo is able to create physical and digital spaces where extreme right political ideologies can flourish. He also joined forces with like-minded white nationalist groups such as Patriot Front and Revolt Against Tradition, which has allowed Rundo to rapidly expand his network and spread his active club ideology across North America.

The Rise of Active Clubs

The chaos that took place in Berkeley on April 15, 2017, was among the worst the city had seen in years. For approximately three hours, protesters for and against then President Donald Trump brawled at a “Patriot Rally” on the streets surrounding Civic Center Park, armed with pepper spray, smoke bombs, sticks, and wooden dowels. Seven attendees were hospitalized with injuries while 20 people were arrested, according to Berkeley police.

Among those arrested was Rundo, who arrived in Berkeley with members of his Rise Above Movement white nationalist group, and was later taken into custody on suspicion of battery on a police officer and for resisting a police officer. The charges were dropped after an Alameda County deputy district attorney determined that there was not “enough evidence to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.” It took more than a year for theDepartment of Justice to bring federal charges against Rundo and three other RAM members for their alleged involvement in political rallies across California, claiming that they “violently attacked counter-protesters, journalists and a police officer.”

According to the complaint filed by federal officials in October 2018, Rundo and three other RAM members were allegedly involved in “violent attacks” at the Berkeley rally, which included Rundo punching a defenseless person and a police officer. The complaint also noted that RAM members celebrated the assaults in Berkeley, which prosecutors say included one member posting photos of himself attacking people and of other RAM members assaulting counterprotesters with their combat sports training.

The 2018 federal complaint followed the filing of an indictment in federal court that led to the arrest of four other RAM members on rioting charges related to their participation at the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 at which a counterprotester was murdered. The four men, including RAM co-founder Ben Daley and UCLA doctoral student Michael Miselis, pleaded guilty and were sentenced for their crimes. The RAM defendants in California were luckier. While many expected Rundo and the three other defendants to face jail time—one RAM member even pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge—a district judge dismissed the charges against them in 2019, claiming that the federal statute used to prosecute the members infringed upon their First Amendment rights to free speech.

Prior to the string of arrests, the California-based RAM boasted more than 50 members who trained in various combat sports such as mixed martial arts and boxing, which they later applied during street fights and protests.The group rose to prominence in 2017, when they began attending political rallies and targeting anti-fascist activists. They infiltrated protests and disrupted proceedings by fighting with those opposing their ultra-nationalist ideology. They concealed their identities using skull face masks and goggles, and went into rallies with their hands wrapped in tape in preparation for physical altercations. They then glorified their antics in propaganda videos posted on social media.

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RAM members at an “anti-Sharia law” protest in San Bernardino, California.

RAM’s penchant for MMA and underground fight clubs is one of the main things that distinguishes it from various other white supremacist groups in the United States. It has also helped RAM expand beyond the borders of the U.S., recruit new members, and network with other neo-Nazi groups dabbling in MMA around the world.

While four of RAM’s most prominent members remain in jail since being indicted on Charlottesville rioting charges, Rundo left the United States after having his case dismissed in California and has spent the last few years trying to further his white nationalist agenda and rebuild the fighting community that had been diminished by federal prosecution. After moving to Eastern Europe, Rundo founded a far-right propaganda outfit known as theInternational Conservative Community,which boasts a network of neo-Nazis around the world, with groups in Greece, Poland, Sweden, Hungary, Russia and Canada. The ICC is behind the **propaganda campaign for Kyle Rittenhouse**, the 17-year-old charged with the fatal shooting of two protesters during an anti-racism demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Rundo’s campaign included spreading artwork depicting Rittenhouse with the caption, “Kyle was Right.” The ICC has planted stickers, large-scale graffiti work, and banners emblazoned with Rittenhouse’s image across Europe and North America. In Serbia, where Rundo was living in 2020, the group painted a picture of an armed Rittenhouse standing proud with a Schwarze Sonne (German for Black Sun) as his backdrop; the symbol, also known as a sonnerad, is used by a number of with far-right groups that traffic in neo-Nazi ideologies. The painting in Serbia was featured alongside a Confederate flag and a picture of a deranged-looking Homer Simpson cartoon character aiming a gun, with the caption “KILL YOUR LOCAL ANTIFA SCUM.”

It was around this time that Rundo began encouraging his followers to form their own “Active Clubs,” which he defined as a “small group of comrades who share our values of identity.” The aim of such groups is to “focus on physical fitness” and “create displays of defiance that show your community that our culture will not be erased.”

“The active club is not so much a structural organization as it is a lifestyle for those willing to work, risk and sweat to embody our ideals for themselves and to promote them to others,” Rundo wrote on his Active Club Telegram channel. “The active lifestyle is the counter to the left’s culture of apathy, addiction, and vice. Get active today in your area and be the change you want to see.”

Members of Colorado’s “Front Range Active Club” training in combat sports. Credit: Front Range Telegram

Rundo later started the “Active Club Podcast” with Denis Nikitin, a Russian neo-Nazi considered to be the godfather of the extreme-right MMA scene, where they teach fellow nationalists how to form their own hate groups. Nikitin, who rose to infamy after launching the neo-Nazi MMA organization and clothing brand known as White Rex, has also been banned from entering any Schengen-area European countries. However, while Rundo boasted on the podcast about the “perks” of living in Eastern Europe, the extremist was expelled from Serbia after Bellingcat outed his location in Serbia. The Serbian daily Blic reported that on Feb. 11, 2021, Serbian police escorted Rundo to the Trbušnica-Šepak border pass, which connects Serbia to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Rundo’s luck in avoiding prosecution, however, may soon come to an end. On 4 March, 2021, the LA Timesreported that a US Federal Appeals Court had reinstated rioting charges against Rundo and three accomplices from RAM, ruling that they could be tried for their roles in riots in California in 2017. Despite facing potential arrest, Rundo remains active on Telegram, the social media platform popular among the extreme right, where continues to espouse his vision for the evolution of white supremacy.

“White Nationalism 3.0”

In a December 2020 essay entitled “The Idea Behind ‘Active Club,’” Robert Rundo laid out his argument for why his fellow angry white men should start their own neighborhood fight clubs.

“As most institutions give little or no regard for white youth today, Active Clubs’ role will fill that gap,” Rundo wrote, adding that active clubs promote camaraderie, identity formation, and “awaken racial bonds between kin” as they engage in fitness activities, combat sports training, and the “thrill and excitement” of spreading right-wing propaganda in the form of flyers, stickers, and graffiti. Rundo theorized that by spreading their message through propaganda posters and stickers, it will serve as a “critical revelation,” letting “our own know the fight is not over.”

Rundo also dictated that the clubs must remain small and local, explaining that it will make it more difficult for the media and law enforcement officials to shut down the entire operation. “Even if the system and their dogs manage to put out one fire, it will lead to minimal results,” he wrote.

Rundo’s guidelines suggest he has learned from his mistakes with RAM. Initially, the white nationalist group, the first prominent example of an active club in North America, had 50 members and was active on mainstream social media, which made it easy for researchers to identify its members. The modern iteration of the active club, which Rundo sometimes refers to as “white nationalism 3.0,” is different. The groups are local, self-contained, and are careful about the images they publish online. They take part in fitness activities together and focus on local activism—spreading stickers, posters, and banner drops—instead of taking part in rallies and demonstrations where they may be identified.

Rundo also launched a media outlet called Media2Rise, which he claimed would “counter” liberal narratives.Over the past few months, the former MMA fighter has used this platform to publish “Sons of the Founders,” described as a “documentary” about Patriot Front—an offshoot of the white supremacist Vanguard group that trains in “hand-to-hand combat.” The propaganda film, which follows Patriot Front members during their demonstrations held this year on the Fourth of July in Pennsylvania, underscores the growing (and highly concerning) ties between like-minded extremists such as Rundo and Patriot Front.

Patriot Front members holding up an ‘Active Club’ banner

To date, Rundo’s active clubs have formed across the United States, including in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.An active club has even launched in Quebec and Ontario, the latter of which was recently renamed to “Action 14,” a reference to the 14-word neo-Nazi slogan “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The rebranding leaves no doubt that the group is more than a fitness club for like-minded individuals but rather a white nationalist propaganda outfit that indoctrinates white men into the nationalist cause.

When prospective members questioned Action 14’s decision to rebrand in the public chat, arguing that it was “setting up the group to be targeted,” the club’s leadership shrugged off the concerns. “The name gives us a new look, and a clear signal to those on our side as to what we are about. It allows us to go national without splintering into 13 different groups, one for each province. We are a National Active Club now. Action 14 is the banner we all organize under,” the administrator said. However, the group eventually rebranded to “Active Club Canada” after what the administrator said was a “detailed discussion” among the founders.

“Tell your friends, wherever they are in Canada, that we are organizing workouts near them! If we don’t have one set up already in your area, you can rest assured that we will soon! This is the place to reach out to us. If you are a White man, looking to meet other Pro-White Brothers in a fitness setting, Active Club Canada is the place for you!” the group’s administrator posted on Telegram.

‘Active Club Canada’ aka ‘Action 14’ members posing during a workout session in Ontario.

While Rundo would likely disagree with the Ontario active club’s decision to go national, he is no doubt delighted to know that his propaganda outfit masquerading as a fitness and martial arts counter culture group is spreading. The extremist organizer had previously written about the importance of combat sports as a “weapon” for white supremacists, as well as a way of building a community of like-minded individuals. “The nationalist movement was never built on idle talk but on those with iron will who didn’t back down,” he wrote in a 2020 essay. “In a time of weak men it only takes some effort to rise above all. Combat sports is that way up.”

Indeed, MMA and combat sports’ idolization of hypermasculinity, 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. Many white nationalist and far-right groups espouse “straight-edge” lifestyles focused on clean eating, a disciplined physical fitness regimen, and abstention from drugs and alcohol. Many such groups lionize white, muscular, male bodies, using them as models for future generations. 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.

Writing in her acclaimed book “Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right,” Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss stated that “MMA becomes a powerful incubator for the far right when these ideas of masculinity—the notion that being a man is achieved through violent confrontation, domination, and physical intimidation of opponents—are layered onto far-right ideology about immigrant invasions and defense of the nation.”

This is exactly what Rundo hopes to achieve with his active club initiative. And as his fascist fight clubs continue to spread across the United States, so does his message of hate.

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https://www.propublica.org/article/robert-rundo-denis-nikitin-hooligans-europe-hate-group

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Robert Rundo, a leader of the violent white supremacist group known as the Rise Above Movement, pounded the man, hitting him with a series of thudding punches — left, right, left — that sent his foe staggering backwards.

But this wasn’t a street brawl captured on video: It was a boxing match — complete with 12-ounce gloves, a referee, and scantily attired ring girls — and it was promoted by a white supremacist fight club in Ukraine. The event was held inside a bunker-like building in Kiev, with fighters competing inside a cage of the sort familiar to mixed martial arts fans in America.

With the skinhead subculture fading, neo-Nazi organizers in Europe have turned to promoting boxing and mixed martial arts bouts with the aim of pulling in new recruits.

About This Partnership

This story is part of an ongoing collaboration between ProPublica and Frontline that includes documentaries scheduled to begin on PBS in August 2018.

Rundo’s fight in Ukraine occurred this spring, as he and two other RAM members toured Europe. In Kiev, Rundo and other RAM members hung out with Denis Nikitin, a burly Russian soccer hooligan who has become one of the most successful fight promoters in ultra-nationalist circles.

On social media the group posted video and photos from the event, which was held in May. Based in Southern California, RAM’s members were involved in political violence last year in Charlottesville and other American cities. The group says it wants to revive the “warrior spirit” of the white male, and its videos of fight-training, weight-lifting and street melees have proven popular on social media.

Before traveling to Ukraine, Rundo and another RAM member, Robert Smithson, visited the German town of Ostritz to compete in a mixed martial tournament at the Shield and Sword festival, a white power convergence held on Hitler’s birthday. Attracting roughly 1,000 fascists from across the continent, the gathering was arranged by Germany’s National Democratic Party, the closest thing the country has to an openly Nazi political party. The mixed martial arts tournament held that weekend, Kampf der Nibelungen, is the largest white power combat sports event in Europe, according to researchers monitoring European extremists.

Observers of the far-right in Europe are concerned about the infiltration of neo-Nazis into the boxing and MMA scenes — and they’re particularly worried about Nikitin.

“He is seen as dangerous by those who monitor the far right” due to his “outright neo-Nazi ideology — preaching racial war and the need to ‘reconquer’ the ‘living space’ of the white man in Europe,” said Pavel Klymenko, a Ukrainian researcher with the FARE Network who tracks soccer hooligans.

According to Klymenko, Nikitin has taught knife-fighting techniques and hand-to-hand combat skills to extremist groups in Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. In recent years he has launched a successful streetwear company called White Rex — one T-shirt design features an iron cross, an emblem used by the Nazis, and the words “YOU MUST MURDER,” while another depicts the logo of the Spanish fascist party, or Falange.

Nikitin has repackaged older white supremacist ideas for a new generation, rebranding them as “nationalist concepts,” said Karim Zidan, an independent journalist who writes on the intersection of sports and politics. “Nikitin is a massive figure in both MMA and football hooliganism. In a way, he’s weaponized both sports for his cause,” Zidan told ProPublica and Frontline.

At the Southern Poverty Law Center, Keegan Hankes, an analyst who follows RAM, said the group’s trip to Europe “signals that they aren’t just hobbyists. It’s gives them credibility” within the U.S. white power movement.

Social media postings show Rundo acquired several new tattoos on RAM’s European excursion, including an “8” on each shoulder (88 is the white supremacist code for “Heil Hitler”) and the White Rex logo (a Viking warrior) on his right shin with the word “fanatic” emblazoned below.

RAM has also begun importing White Rex T-shirts and selling its own garments as a means of funding the group. The Southern California organization operates an online store, Right Brand Clothing, which carries items from Nikitin’s clothing line as well as other brands like Svastone.

Nikitin refused to comment when contacted by ProPublica and Frontline, saying via email, “There will be no contact or information exchange with you. Just sit quietly and see us rise.”