{"id":312235,"date":"2025-11-28T12:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T12:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/312235\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T12:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T12:30:10","slug":"mma-figures-exposed-at-covert-neo-nazi-event-in-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/312235\/","title":{"rendered":"MMA figures exposed at covert neo-Nazi event in Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Welcome to Sports Politika, a media venture founded by investigative journalist and researcher Karim Zidan that strives to help you understand how sports and politics shape the world around us. My mission is to offer an independent platform for accessible journalism that raises awareness and empowers understanding.<\/p>\n

If you share this vision, please consider supporting my work by becoming a paid subscriber<\/a>. I am currently running a special offer whereby you can secure a subscription at a 40% discounted price\u2026forever.<\/p>\n

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On Monday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)\u2014Canada\u2019 national public broadcaster\u2014published its latest investigation<\/a> into the deepening ties between mixed martial arts and extremist ideology in the country.<\/p>\n

The investigation centred on a secretive neo-Nazi conference that took place in Vancouver, British Columbia this past summer\u2014an event that drew some of the most influential white supremacists in Canada, along with martial arts gym owners, coaches and trainers.<\/p>\n

Organized by the Exiles of the Golden Age, a group that refers to itself as \u201cCanada\u2019s premier traditionalist even planners,\u201d the gathering also included white supremacist nationalist group Second Sons Canada, a prominent example of the festering fascist fight club movement.<\/p>\n

I was interviewed as part of the investigation, where I discussed how MMA appears to have become the \u201ccommon ground\u201d between the various extremist entities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the real-world proof that mixed martial arts really does serve as this common denominator amongst these various groups,\u201d I said<\/a>. \u201cIt suggests something far more sinister, that this is deeper and more widespread than we may have initially considered.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Footage from the event was obtained by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN)<\/a>, who sent a photographer to obtain images and videos of those who attended. Two of the featured speakers were Sweden\u2019s white nationalist influencer Marcus Follin and neo-Nazi Paul Waggener, who co-founded the pagan and neo-fascist cult Wolves of Vinland.<\/p>\n

Waggner owns a jiu-jitsu gym and founded Operation Werewolf, a fitness and martial arts lifestyle brand named after the Nazi wartime plan to create a resistance force which would operate behind enemy lines.<\/p>\n

Waggner\u2019s cult has established affiliations with a wide range of gyms, including the Wolf Brigade gym that, at one point, even had a partnership with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Products such as Wolf Brigade\u2019s steel maces were acquired by the UFC\u2019s director of strength and conditioning at the performance institute and branded with the UFC\u2019s logo. Wolf Brigade claimed<\/a> the partnership was terminated after anti-fascists exposed the gym\u2019s fascist ties<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Beyond the headline speakers, the investigation revealed the concerning links between local gym owners and martial arts coaches to the extremist movement. One of the attendees was a Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor who used to be an assistant children\u2019s coach. Others were members of the Vinland Hammerskins (VHS), the Canadian branch of an international white supremacist gang responsible for a number of terrorist attacks and hate crimes, including a mass shooting at a Sikh temple in the U.S..<\/p>\n

Hammerskins were also responsible for the first wave of active clubs in Canada, using the guise of combat sports training as a means to recruit gullible young men to their violent cause.<\/p>\n

Sports Politika readers will be familiar with active clubs, which I\u2019ve reported on extensively here<\/a> and here<\/a>. It is a decentralized network of white nationalists and neo-Nazis has been spreading over the past few years. The activities of these groups range from martial arts training to public protests and vandalism campaigns.<\/p>\n

As of January 2025, Sports Politika has found more than 125 cells <\/a>spread across the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe. The Global Project Against Hate puts it closer to 187.<\/p>\n

Active clubs are present in at least 35 U.S. states and 10 European countries, including Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, Norway, The Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

Canada has emerged as a hotbed for some of the most notorious active clubs, with groups emerging in at least five provinces. Some Canadian active clubs welcomed members of the Atomwaffen Division<\/a>, allowing the terrorist group to organize under a different name. The groups have been involved in political intimidation<\/a> and violence<\/a>, both in the United States and abroad.<\/p>\n

Active Clubs were founded by American neo-Nazi Robert Rundo as a decentralized network of small, localized cells\u2014an architecture he believed would frustrate media scrutiny and law-enforcement pressure. It was a lesson drawn from the collapse of his earlier organization, the Rise Above Movement. \u201cEven if the system and their dogs manage to put out one fire, it will lead to minimal results,\u201d he wrote on the Active Club Telegram channel in 2020.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>AWhite supremacist and active club founder Robert Rundo<\/p>\n

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Yet despite Rundo\u2019s warnings, many of these groups could not resist convening in public displays of force. Those gatherings helped trigger the very investigation they hoped to avoid and exposed far more participants than a dispersed structure ever would have.<\/p>\n

As word spread about a CBC investigation ahead of publication, Waggner took to Telegram to share some words of wisdom with those \u201ccurrently undergoing the initiation of getting doxed and harassed by antifa and media in Canada and elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFortitude. Discretion. Sovereignty,\u201d he wrote.<\/a> \u201cNo words for rats and snakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, the fascists forgot the first rule of fight club: don\u2019t talk about fight club.<\/p>\n

\"Exclusive:Exclusive: Neo-Nazi MMA active clubs set up shop on Substack<\/a>\"FascistFascist Fight Clubs in Trumpland <\/a>\"Blood,Blood, Sweat, Hate: MMA’s festering neo-Nazi problem <\/a><\/p>\n

Sports Politika is a media platform focusing on intersection of sports, power and politics. Support independent journalism by upgrading to a paid subscription<\/a> ( or gift a subscription<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to Sports Politika, a media venture founded by investigative journalist and researcher Karim Zidan that strives to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-312235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-mma","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}