Active Clubs: Neo-Nazi ‘Fight Clubs’ growing in popularity in the US and Canada

The first rule of the Fight Club is that you don’t talk about it. However, experts, journalists, and law enforcement agencies alike are focusing more and more on the new, trendy kids of white supremacy.

In an exclusive exposé, Vice News put Kristoffer Nippak into the spotlight. This 25-year-old Ontario man is at the center of a vast network of decentralized neo-Nazi cells posing as fitness groups known as the Active Clubs.

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Nippak, despite his age, has a long history of involvement in the Canadian neo-Nazi scene.

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Nippak was a founding member of the Canadian offshoot of Atomwaffen, an online hate group linked to several murders and designated in Canada as a terrorist organization.

Some experts believe that Active Clubs could be a militia taking the disguise of being a sports club network.

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“There's lots of evidence suggesting that this is actually a shadow militia that is training and preparing for a Day X scenario”, argued Alexander Ritzmann, senior advisor of the Counter-Extremism Project, when he spoke to Vice News.

Ritzmann is unsure what Day X exactly is. He speculates it could be a scenario not unlike the January 6 Capitol Assault in the United States, or even worse.

Rolling Stone Magazine explains that Active Clubs are filling the void left by decimated far-right groups such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.

“They are who the Proud Boys wanted to be”, said Jon Lewis, an expert on extremism from the George Washington University to Rolling Stone.

Active Clubs combine training in mixed martial arts, especially kickboxing, with white supremacy, they have been described as giving the neo-Nazi movement a more slick, palatable appearance.

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According to NPR, Active Clubs began in December 2020, founded by self-professed Fascist Robert Rundo. Rundo was arrested in the spring of 2023 in Romania and extradited to California to face charges on rioting.

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Bellingcat researcher Michael Colborne told NPR that Rundo imported the model of far-right European hooliganism to North America, following the F’s: Fashion, Fitness, and Fighting.

Indeed, a lot of the aesthetics of Active Clubs seem to be inspired by the 1999 David Fincher movie 'Fight Club', about an underground club of men frustrated with modern society that evolves into terrorism.

Overall, Active Clubs focus on localized recruitment, and make sure to cultivate an image that makes it harder to link them to illicit activities.

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The Anti-Defamation League explains that Active Clubs claim to focus on nationalism, male camaraderie, spiritual warrior culture, and an alternative to woke left-wing culture to hide their more extreme views.

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Among other things, Active Clubs promote The Great Replacement Theory, a racist theory that non-white groups are seeking to systematically substitute the white population.

Active Clubs also promote the idea of “white unity” in the face of an upcoming racial war. Indeed, their focus on combat sports is seen as a preparation for such “inevitable” conflict.

According to a report by the Counter-Extremism Project cited by Rolling Stone, Active Clubs cooperate and connect among each other but remain operationally independent.

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This means that if one leader is arrested, such as Rundo, or if one club is shut down, it has minimal effect on the rest of the network.

It’s hard to say how many members are in the ranks of Active Clubs in the United States and Canada, or how deep they have managed to infiltrate into entities such as law enforcement agencies.

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Hopefully, just like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers before them, Active Clubs will be brought to light before they can do more damage.