07.05.2023
6 min
1581
At the end of August, the Active Club “fight night” took place in San Diego, organized under the guise of a sporting event. The format combined fights and performances by radical musical groups, which became a way of covertly promoting neo-Nazi ideology. The organizers told the owner of the premises that they were renting the hall for shooting an advertisement for sportswear. In reality, an extremist gathering disguised as a cultural and sporting event took place. Geolocation of the video and photos allowed us to confirm the location of the “fight night” and prove the true nature of the event.
Organizers of an annual combat sports event allegedly told the venue’s owner that they were using the space to film a sportswear commercial with a small “audience,” including women and children.
In reality, the event, hosted by the SoCal Active Club on August 30, was part of a movement that promotes violent and racist ideas. It featured combat sports-style fights and performances by two neo-Nazi groups, each of which has been implicated in deadly violence, including a 2012 mass shooting that a former U.S. attorney general called a “horrific act of hate and terror.”
The information was confirmed by independent researcher Wiley D. Cope and researchers at the SoCal Research Club (SCRC) that the event took place at a professional sports arena in suburban San Diego, based on images released by the SoCal Active Club, as well as a teaser video published by a far-right propaganda outlet. The arena operates as a professional wrestling school on weekdays and is available for rent for events on weekends.
Charles Smith, co-founder and CEO of Rising Star Entertainment Group, which rents out the space, confirmed the location after being shown photos of the event. He said he was unaware that the space was being used for an Active Club event and had never heard of the group or “any racial movement of this caliber here in San Diego” until he was contacted by reporters about it.
Smith said the event organizers, through Peerspace, a third-party booking and rental website, told him the order was for a “prototype commercial for a fitness apparel brand.”
“I was told that a small audience of people would be used as the ‘crowd’ for the shoot, and that there would be women and children,” Smith said, “so of course I didn’t pay attention.”
After verifying that the event did take place at his venue, Smith said it was “disappointing that this is incontrovertible evidence that this event took place here with this audience.”
The international Active Club movement focuses on using fitness, fighting, and fashion to recruit young men and boys to the far right, normalize fascist ideas, and prepare them for physical violence. The Active Club movement was founded by American neo-Nazi Robert Rando, who is currently on probation in the United States after pleading guilty in December 2024 to planning and participating in riots at political rallies across California in 2017.
“Collaborations with other Active Clubs and neo-fascist organizations like the Patriotic Front serve as important cultural events for the far-right, helping to expand their sphere of influence,” Heidi Bayrich of the US-based Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) said in an email.
“Exposing the Active Club and neo-fascist activities that are associated with violence helps inform the public and authorities about the beliefs that turn into violence,” Bayrich added, “especially when those beliefs have become prevalent in mainstream politics.”
Smith, who said he is of mixed African-American and Japanese descent, said he visited the venue late in the evening after the event, when the hosts were cleaning up.
“I was greeted with pats on the back, handshakes and a few words of ‘thank you for letting us use this space, we’re very grateful,’” he said. “It’s hard to believe it’s the same group.”
On September 2, the SoCal Active Club posted several photos from the event on its Telegram channel. Two of the photos show details of the venue, including an orange section of wall in the background.
The photos also show a banner for the Hammerskins support group, a violent international neo-Nazi group with ties to the Active Club movement, particularly in the United States. Hammerskins members have been convicted of numerous crimes, including assault and murder.
A 12-second black-and-white teaser video released by a far-right propaganda outlet founded by Rundo gave a blurry idea of the shape of the building and ceiling of the event venue.
The images provided important clues to Cope and researchers at SCRC, a Southern California-based research team that tracks and disseminates information about hate and extremist groups, including Active Clubs. Drawing on local knowledge of the area and their knowledge of the activities of Active Club members in Southern California, they began searching for gyms and warehouses in San Diego County with boxing rings for rent. They found the location the same day the teaser video was released, Cope said.
They were able to confirm that the Active Club combat sports event was taking place there using video and images from previous events hosted by the wrestling school (which we have chosen not to name because there is no evidence of its involvement in this event).
A video posted to the school’s YouTube channel on August 17, 2025—two weeks before the Active Club event—shows the same orange wall and black banners with orange trim, only partially covered at the Active Club event. Also visible in the YouTube video from the venue and in photos posted from the Active Club event is a wooden ceiling beam with wires on the left side.
Another photo posted by the hosts also confirmed that the venue where the Active Club martial arts event was being held was a professional wrestling event. A photo of one of the neo-Nazi bands performing at the event shows brown beams and wires on the ceiling; the same beams and wires, in the same positions, can be seen in photos posted by the event organizer on his Peerspace page advertising the venue for rent.
The Active Club event was more than just a “fight night.” In a statement after the event, the hosts of the Southern California-based Active Club thanked two neo-Nazi bands from the United States for their musical performances after the fights, praising the bands for “really bringing an incredible energy to the event.”
Members of both bands have been linked to violence, including mass murders. A former member of one of the bands, Wade Michael Page, killed seven people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in 2012 before committing suicide in what U.S. authorities have called a hate crime and an act of terrorism. Page was also a member of the band Hammerskins.
A current member of another band that performed at the Active Club event pleaded guilty in 2012 to attempted manslaughter and served time in prison for the crime. The band member punched a man outside a bar in Michigan, ultimately causing his death from a severe traumatic brain injury.
According to GPAHE’s Bayrich, the presence of these groups is “a serious cause for concern, though not surprising given that the purpose of the Active Club movement is based on a belief in an imminent race war.”
“The history of violence associated with the Active Clubs is clear,” Bayrich added.
Two weeks after the September 13th combat sports event, members of one of the active clubs that organized it took part in an alleged attack in Huntington Beach, California.
Members of the Patriotic Front, the Active Club of Southern California, and other far-right and neo-Nazi groups took part in an evening vigil in Huntington Beach, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, in honor of slain right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk.
According to a report about the event published in The LA Ten Four, a newsletter that covers issues related to lifeguards in the Los Angeles area, the man who was attacked was a member of the picnickers who confronted the far-right group along with several others, calling them “un-American” and “traitors,” and followed the group to a parking garage.
Video of the attack, recorded by The LA Ten Four, shows the man being punched, kicked and stomped on by several other people. At least two of the attackers appeared to be wearing SoCal Active Club T-shirts, which can be identified from photos and videos released during the memorial service.
At the time of publication, the SoCal Active Club had not responded regarding their apparent involvement in this attack.
