Several branches of the white supremacist ‘Active Club’ MMA group have been spreading white supremacist propaganda, vandalizing Black-owned businesses, and attending White Lives Matter protests. (…) The lightning-bolt graffiti advertised an “Active Club,” a collection of neo-Nazi MMA & fitness fight clubs. The outfit was founded by Robert Rundo, one of the leaders of the infamous Rise Above Movement white supremacist organization, known for encouraging fellow extremists to engage in martial arts training. “It’s kind of shocking,” Boone told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “It’s really unfamiliar for this neighborhood. Even though we grew up in this neighborhood in the ’70s and ’80s, still it’s a little different than something we’re used to.” Other Active Club propaganda has appeared elsewhere in Pennsylvania over the past few months. According to LancasterOnline, another local Active Club known as the Keystone Nationalist Active Club claimed responsibility for white supremacist and antisemitic stickers found at Millersville University and Franklin & Marshall College in December 2021. (…) Various videos and photos posted by the various Active Club groups on alternative social media platforms like Telegram show how common this form of publicity stunt has become in small-town USA: Seymour, Indiana; Coeur d’Alene Idaho; Cheyenne, Wyoming—or even across cities like Denver and, more recently, Philadelphia. This new influx of white supremacist propaganda is due to the persistent effort of infamous white nationalists like Rundo, who spent years sowing the seeds of hate while building a global following for his neo-Nazi fight-club initiatives. TheThe past few years have seen countless examples of the far right taking advantage of combat sports spaces in order to radicalize and unite disenfranchised youth. Russian neo-Nazi MMA organization White Rex was among the first entities to utilize the violent sport, later expanding to include a clothing line emblazoned with fascist symbolism. Other fascist fight clubs began appearing in places like Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Ukraine, all of whom utilized combat sports as a tool for radicalization.
via bloodyelbow: Neo-Nazi MMA fight clubs are spreading hate across the U.S.