In April, Ryan Garcia defeated Devin Haney in one of the most strangely promoted fights in recent memory.
The reactions were swift, but one of the most disturbing sentiments delved into religion, and that’s when the ugly side of combat sports reared its ugly head.
Haney is a Muslim, and some used his loss to mock Islam and call it the religion of a false prophet and other derogatory things.
It was infuriating to read for the fight, as strange as the pre-promotion and Garcia’s antics were, degrading religion was never in the mix.
It’s a perfect example of the bigotry, racism, ignorance and hatred that so often infiltrates combat sports, an issue these sports rarely seem to address.
The Far Right Loves The Fight Game
In March at a bare-knuckle boxing event in Canada promoted by the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC), a Montana-based fighter named Sam Polk, aka “Blunt Force Trauma,” destroyed his opponent in just over a minute in the first round. While that was exciting, the backstory behind Polk is not.
In a story by Sam Eagan in Front Office Sports, Eagan writes that Polk is an Army veteran who is sponsored by MurderTheMedia, “a far-right outlet founded by a Proud Boys leader who was sentenced to prison time for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.”
Eagan noted that Polk had two sonnenrads tattooed on his chest. The symbols, known as black suns, are ancient European symbols associated with neo-Nazi movements and the far right. Even worse, after Polk’s victory, neo-Nazi Christopher Pohlhaus, leader of the Blood Tribe, took to social media and posted screenshots of what he alleged were text messages between him and Polk, and claimed the win to be a “Total Aryan Victory.”
In response, BKFC founder David Feldman stated the following:
“We were not aware of Polk’s sponsor or [alleged] ties to these groups,” Feldman told the Southern Poverty Law Center. “Him or any other fighter who fights for organizations who support white supremacist beliefs are not welcome and will not fight in the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship.”
Yet Polk is still listed on the organization’s roster.
Extremism has infiltrated and spread throughout combat sports, and leaders employ combat sports as an effective recruiting tool because these bigoted movements are loosely or rarely policed by sanctioning bodies.
Embracing Ignorance In MMA And Boxing
We’ve witnessed it in MMA, where some UFC promotions boil down to race wars and political battles.
The December 2019 and November 2021 UFC fights between Kamaru Usman vs Colby Covington devolved into Black vs. white and never-Trumpers vs MAGA.
Covington proudly wore his red MAGA hat and paraded his support for Trump at every press conference, transforming the fight into a political promotion for the former president.
But the sport thrives off racial, ethnic and political tension, so the more personal, the better.
Leading up to their first match at UFC 229 in 2018, Conor McGregor attacked Khabib Nurmagomedov’s religion, father and country. The insults resulted in McGregor’s destruction through a Khabib rear naked choke at the highly anticipated fight. Afterward, a victorious but frustrated Khabib, who had endured weeks of taunts and personal attacks, jumped over the cage and unleashed on members of McGregor’s camp.
But it didn’t stop there.
In an attempt to goad Khabib into a lucrative rematch in 2019, McGregor targeted his wife and posted a picture of their wedding where her face was covered.
“Your wife is a towel mate,” said McGregor in a tweet he deleted a few hours later.
Some ignorant fans thought it was funny, but most didn’t.
And while it was deleted, it existed long enough for all to see.
Boxing has seen its fair share of racial ugliness as well.
Leading up to their legendary first fight in 1971, Muhammad Ali mercilessly attacked Joe Frazier, calling him “ugly,” a “gorilla” and the highly detested “Uncle Tom.” The taunts turned the fight into a divisive event based on class, income and skin tone. It was white collar vs blue collar, light-skinned vs dark-skinned, Black Power/Malcolm X vs peaceful protest/Martin Luther King.
Ali’s diminishing insults affected Frazier for years and created an ugly, contentious rift in Black America.
A Modern Day Faux Crusades
One of the more surprising instances of bigotry occurred in collegiate wrestling.
Penn State wrestler Aaron Brooks is a young man who attributes his success to his faith. Last month at the NCAA Wrestling Championships, he donned a bandana that read “100% Jesus” before winning his fourth title, which wasn’t an issue.
But a year prior, after winning his third straight title, Brooks unleashed a direct insult at Islam that shocked everyone.
“It’s everything. Christ resurrections and everything. Not just his life, but his death and resurrection,” said Brooks to ESPN after being asked about the role his faith plays in his career. “You can only get that through him, it will be spread only through him. No false prophets, no Muhammad nor anyone else. Only Jesus Christ himself.”
Afterward, Muslims and many others rightfully slammed his unwarranted denigration of Islam.
No one has any problem with Brooks sharing his love for his religion, but he could easily have expressed it without insulting Islam.
This is this type of hateful, demeaning rhetoric that inflames tensions, especially during this time in an increasingly divided America where Christian nationalism is spreading rapidly across the country and conservatives are attempting to use it to infiltrate areas such as education, politics and the law.
Will Combat Sports Do Right?
Other professional sports have generally avoided these issues that plague combat sports. And when they flare up, they’re quickly addressed.
When former LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling was caught using racial slurs, players protested and Adam Silver fined him $2.5 million, banned him for life, and forced a sale of the team.
But combat sports thrive off of controversy.
Hatred, racism and bigotry help fan the flames of fight promotions. In many cases, you can say ignorance and hatred are encouraged because it’s seldom silenced or punished in these sports.
Much of the attraction for those perpetuating hate is the violent nature of sports like MMA and boxing.
When a fighter is aligned with a hate group, followers rally around him, strengthening their recruitment efforts.
“That’s one aspect of what we’re seeing when the far right promotes itself via combat sports,” says Dr. Brian Hughes in that FOS story by Sam Eagan. Hughes is a professor at American University and director of PERIL, an organization that researches extremism and radicalization. “It’s a way of elevating the movement’s visibility and credibility. When an audience roots for a fighter aligned with a far-right group or movement, some of them are rooting for the movement by proxy. The idea is, little by little, to shift casual fans to becoming political supporters.”
That’s why many UFC fans voraciously support the former president when he shows up at the fights, and why he loves showing up at these fights.
While combat sports are fertile ground for recruitment, not all fight fans support these movements or are radicalized through the fights, but it’s a valuable tool for hate groups.
“Fight sports align with far-right values in a way that other sports don’t,” said Hughes. “Far-right politics have always emphasized the importance of violence. Far-right philosophy valorizes violence as the pinnacle of being alive. And ironically, because combat sports are so diverse, they give racist far-right groups the ability to see violent racial conflict performed in miniature in the ring or Octagon.”
Will combat sports take action against these movements? Realistically, no, because the more controversy stirred between fighters, the better the promotion and return at the gate and PPV buys.
So it’s up to us to know better, do better and keep up the good fight outside of the ring and octagon.
