MMA is a fascist pipeline

About four years ago, in search of a hobby to keep me both fit and to interrupt my increasingly anxious mind, I took up martial arts. While other women my age were leaning into their maternal instincts, I was leaning into an urge to release some deeply suppressed rage at the world. Perhaps all those years of trying to make it better and feeling like we weren’t getting very far had altered something in me. Either way, I decided I wanted to learn, not just to defend myself, but to fight. 

Martial arts have always interested me. As a tomboy and self-professed nerd I spent much of my youth daydreaming I was a yet-to-be-realised super hero who, any day now, would discover their secret super power and eject myself into another realm far, far away from this one. I spent my youth consuming Karate Kid movies, the Ninja Turtles, and Street Fighter. I tried different forms: Karate, Kung Fu, boxing, Ju Jitsu, Muay Thai, before settling on my chosen fix of Sanda, or Chinese kick boxing. 

(What makes Chinese kick boxing different from regular kick boxing? I won't bore you with too much detail, but it basically involves wrestling – and being able to throw someone over my shoulder was a life-long ambition. So, that’s where I settled. As I said, nerd stuff.) 

Sweaty cage fighters

An interesting side effect of this new hobby has been how confused my algorithm has become.  As I scroll social media, wedged between vegan recipes, pro-Palestine protests, climate news and animals doing adorable things, I now see boxing’s best knock-outs, jiu jitsu kids, Thailand training camps and Ukrainian UFC fighters. I sadly know the names of more sweaty cage fighters than I am proud to admit. Yes, I often wonder how I got here. 

Amidst this bizarre new content stream came Trump’s 80th birthday party. You know, the one where he held a UFC fight on the lawn of the White House. Where men beating each other to a pulp was prefaced by dirt bike stunts, live podcast bros and half naked women handing out Monster energy drinks. On. The. White. House. Lawn.

This embarrassing display of garish man-child insecurity brought home what I’d been realising for a while: the world of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) has become the latest fascist pipeline.

MMA not PC

MMA gyms are the new recruitment ground for far-right ideology, and you don’t need to look closely to understand why. Far-right commentator Andrew Tate, podcaster and ex-martial artist Joe Rogan, and UFC boss, Dana White, all helped Trump become president for a second term and have become the figureheads of manosphere ideology. The latter, Dana White, has made a point of rejecting “PC” culture within the UFC, encouraging fighters to speak their minds when they promote fights, many of them acting as a megaphone for anti-establishment and conservative grievances. 

In this space, violence is packaged up with masculinity and sold to teenagers and men who feel lost and isolated from the world around them. It’s where gender roles are flattened and domination over women is nature’s way. It’s a place where uncontrolled aggression is intrinsic to manhood, where it's normal for kids to be knocked out several times before they turn 10, and where your participance is seen as some kind of spiritual “quest” to salvage masculinity from the grips of feminism and progressive politics. 

Fascist MMA clubs have been popping up in the UK for the last 10 years, another grotesque modern-American import. Going by the name “Active Clubs” these neo-Nazi training grounds were started by US fighter Robert Rundo, and had their origins in far-right street-fighting clubs from California. The aim of the clubs is to prepare these men for an imagined violent future of civil war and fascist revolution, often taking what they learn onto the street to riot and beat up “leftists”. 

Fighting for Christian Nationalism

But this ideology has spread far beyond these clubs, thanks to online influencers like Tate, Jake and Logan Paul and outspoken UFC fighters like Sean Strickland. Via these voices, conspiracy theories are rife and white Christian Nationalism is surging, with the Trump movement increasingly intent on integrating MMA into its broader socio-religious project. 

And when Trump celebrates the 250th anniversary of the United States with this kind of violence at the White House, he is showing us what his America is. As with his long-standing fascination with WWE, he uses combat sports as political theatre: a way to troll opponents, perform dominance and frame violence as entertainment. This is Trump’s playbook. While real violence unfolds on America’s streets and abroad through the exercise of state power, he performs it symbolically with AI videos, wrestling storylines and now, UFC fights, only to dismiss criticism by claiming it’s all a joke. In the world of WWE, this blurring of performance and reality is called ‘kayfabe’. It’s well worth listening to Blindboy Boatclub make this point on the Novara podcast a little while back. 

This theatre encourages the idea of a “divine mission” that means followers train to play a part in a bigger, more compelling story; one that involves fighting for lost Western values. The world of MMA is seeped with honour culture and ancient symbolism. Loyalism, the defence of patriarchy and retribution all make up a cult-like ideology of “sacred” violence, where men feel called to defend a past they feel has been stolen from them. 

This is in harsh contrast to the original ethos of ancient martial arts traditions, which teaches the exact opposite: respect, skill over strength, inner peace, defence of the vulnerable, and of course, self-discipline. The first thing I learnt when I stepped into a martial arts gym was that we were learning how to stop fights from happening, not how to start them. 

Centre of the Manosphere

These clubs are an extension of wider manosphere and looksmaxxing culture. As men become isolated from community, identity and meaning — and as the promises of capitalism offer diminishing returns — they’re becoming atomised in their own self-obsession. Faced with stagnant social mobility, insecure careers and an uncertain future, the self is becoming the last investable frontier of capitalism. It’s the last thing we can feel some sort of control over, endlessly optimise and measure. This is why gyms have similarly become fertile grounds for radicalisation. As one young man said in charity Movember’s research on men’s health in a digital world, “the gym is the only place where we feel we have any control over the progress of our lives.”

In my own experience trying different fighting styles, martial art gyms draw a lot of inquisitive and sceptical types, people who see themselves as outsiders. They’re types who read sci-fi novels and watch rare Japanese anime, who believe space for controlled aggression is necessary, and that martial arts are a critical skill because the world’s becoming so unhinged. I get along with a lot of these people, they are nerdy types like me. I’m very lucky to say I’ve met some absolutely brilliant people in this world and found a gym with caring trainers who keep everyone safe. But it’s clear to me why many are vulnerable to stories that are meant to exploit them. 

Lost to an ideology

As theorist Jean Baudrillard argued in the 1970s, once capitalism exhausts the external world of material goods, it turns inward to commodify the human experience itself. That’s what is happening in these MMA gyms, extracting the compassion, humour and dignity from young men, leaving only the hardened bitter shell. 

No doubt the majority join these clubs for not so un-similar reasons to me: to learn a new skill, for fitness, community, confidence building and so on. But many are coming out the other end with swastika tattoos or calling for Andrew Tate to become Prime Minister. Everyone who exists in these spaces needs to take responsibility to combat (no pun intended) this push towards fascism. There are so many young men who take up these sports because they want to release tension, find a place to belong, to “toughen up” because their worlds outside the gyms are rough. I know several. Without good coaches to mentor these kids, and without embedding a culture of respect and self-discipline where all genders can feel safe and thrive, more men and young boys will be lost to this growing far-right ideology.

Elsewhere in Absurdity...

Last week in Makerfield for the by-election, Alex spoke to a proper climate denier (a Restore Britain voter). We hope his air-con has broken. We have also noticed the right-wing news fixated on air-con as their attempted ‘gotcha’ in their interviews with climate and Heat Strike campaigners. But we continue to meet people and build relationships because we know this is the work we need to do: the survival skills for democracy and our overheating present moment.

Clare was at the Cockpit Theatre for Trojan Horses by Peter Jukes of Byline Times – the read-through of the play, which Clare said was fab, follows Russia’s hybrid information war against the West in the wake of the Maidan Uprising in Ukraine, and the involvement of Steve Bannon’s Cambridge Analytica in the vote to leave the European Union and elect Donald Trump.

Clare was also at the screening of Plan C for Civilisation at The Conduit, and co-leading a three-horizons workshop around climate and geo-engineering.

Stella went to to two plays this week: Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet and Soldiers of Tomorrow by Itai Erdal, which she said was particularly brilliant and well worth seeing.

⁨Diya went to a workshop on hacking a knitting machine hosted by Dazy Chains from Canada and then to a screening of the film Beaches of Agnes by Agnes Varda hosted by her daughter Rosalie Varda(!!).

Tracey was on the ground in France for Fête de la Musique, to understand the look and more importantly the feel of the event and also to understand why so many young black people go.

Tracey also visited the Africa Fashion Exhibition at Quai Branly in Paris, visited the Zoo Art Show to see a street art take over of an entire building in Paris La Défense, and attended Gaylene Gould’s and Clore Leadership’s ReUp Reset an event centred around restorative care for Global Majority leaders.

Charlie went to recce Steel City for a Fête and discovered (as we know only too well when you go on the road) that Sheffield is buzzing with amazing people doing The Amazing Work in preparation for a different future. Opus, we salute thee!!!!

Charlie then filled a van with three students’ end of year possessions and promptly broke down on the M25 on Wednesday, in 34 degree heat. As of writing he still hasn’t returned. Wizard where art thou?!

And finally, to our friends in the media, this is the image to illustrate news stories of extreme heat: