Like Clockwork: An Orange Wall Exposes Yet Another Active Club ‘Fight Night’
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The organisers of an annual combat sports event allegedly told the venue owner that they were using the space to film an activewear commercial featuring a small “crowd” including women and children.
In reality, the event hosted on Aug. 30 by SoCal Active Club was part of a movement that champions violent and racist ideas. It featured combat sports fights and performances from two neo-Nazi bands who each have had a member involved in lethal violence, including one for a 2012 mass murder described by the former US Attorney General as a “heinous act of hatred and terror”.
Bellingcat verified a tip-off from independent researcher Wiley D. Cope and researchers from SoCal Research Club (SCRC) that the event was held at a suburban San Diego professional wrestling venue based on images posted by SoCal Active Club as well as a teaser video posted by a far-right propaganda outlet, which Bellingcat is not naming to prevent amplification. The venue operates as a professional wrestling school on weekdays, and is available for rental for events on weekends.
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Charles Smith, co-founder and CEO of Rising Star Entertainment Group, which leases out the venue, confirmed the location after Bellingcat showed him images of the event. He told Bellingcat by email that he was not aware that the space was being used for an Active Club event, and had never heard of the group or “any sort of racial movement here in San Diego of that calibre” before he was contacted by journalists about it.
Smith said he was told by the event’s hosts via Peerspace, a third-party booking and rental website, that the booking was to shoot “an active fitness clothing brand prototype commercial”.
“I was informed that there would be a small audience of people that would be being used as the ‘crowd’ for the filming and that it would include women and children,” Smith told Bellingcat, “so of course I thought nothing of it.”
Upon verifying from the images that the event did indeed take place at his venue, Smith said that it was “disappointing that this is undeniable proof that this event occurred here with this audience”.
The international Active Club movement focuses on using fitness, fighting and fashion to recruit young men and boys into the far right, normalise fascist ideas and prepare them for physical violence. The Active Club movement was founded by American neo-Nazi Robert Rundo, who is currently on probation in the United States after having pleaded guilty in December 2024 to planning and engaging in riots at political rallies across California in 2017.
Since 2023, Bellingcat has been tracking and geolocating annual “fight nights” held in the US, where white nationalist groups that focus on training their members to fight against their purported enemies gather.
“Collaborations with other Active Clubs and neo-fascist organisations, such as the Patriot Front, serve as important cultural events for the far-right to grow their sphere of influence,” Heidi Beirich from the US-based Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), told Bellingcat by email.
“Exposing Active Club and neo-fascist activities associated with violence helps to inform the public, and authorities, about the beliefs that turn into violence,” Beirich added, “especially when these beliefs have become commonplace in mainstream politics.”
Smith, who told Bellingcat that he is of mixed African-American and Japanese ethnicity, said that 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 couple [of] ‘thanks for letting us use the space, greatly appreciated,’” he told Bellingcat. “It’s hard to believe it’s the same group.”
SoCal Active Club and the far-right propaganda outlet, which was founded by Rundo, did not respond to Bellingcat’s requests for comment.
Identifying Details: An Orange Wall
On Sept. 2, SoCal Active Club posted several photos on their Telegram channel from the event. Two of these photos show details of the venue, including an orange-coloured part of a wall in the background.
The photos also show a banner for a support group of the Hammerskins, a violent international neo-Nazi gang that has links to the Active Club movement, particularly in the United States. Hammerskins members have been convicted of multiple crimes, including assault and murder.
A 12-second black-and-white teaser video released by the far-right propaganda outlet founded by Rundo gave a blurry idea of the shape of the building and the ceiling of the venue.
These images provided crucial clues for Cope and researchers from SCRC, a Southern California-based research collective that monitors and shares information on hate and extremist groups, including Active Clubs. Based on local knowledge of the area and their familiarity with the activities of members of the Active Club chapter in Southern California, they began searching for San Diego County gyms and warehouses with boxing rings for rent. They found the venue the same day the teaser video was released, Cope said.
Bellingcat was able to confirm that this was the location of the Active Club combat sports event, using videos and images from previous events held by the wrestling school (which we are choosing not to name as there is no evidence that they have any involvement in the event).
In a video posted on the school’s YouTube channel on Aug. 17, 2025 – two weeks before the Active Club event – the same orange wall and black banners with orange trim that are only partially obscured at the Active Club event, are visible. Also visible in both the venue’s YouTube video and the photos posted from the Active Club event is a wooden ceiling beam, with wires on the left-hand side.
Another photo posted by the hosts further confirmed that the professional wrestling venue was the location of the Active Club combat sports event. In a photo taken of one of the neo-Nazi bands that performed at the event, brown beams and wires are visible on the ceiling; these same beams and wires, in the same positions, can be seen in photos posted by the venue on their Peerspace page advertising the venue for rent for events.
Bands ‘A Major Cause For Concern’
The Active Club event was more than just a “fight night”. In their post after the event, the SoCal Active Club hosts thanked two US-based neo-Nazi bands for their musical performances after the fights, praising the bands for “really topping the event off with incredible energy.”
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Bellingcat is not naming the bands to avoid amplification, who have been active for many years in US and international neo-Nazi music scenes.
Both bands have had members associated with violence, including mass murder. A former member of one of the bands, Wade Michael Page, murdered seven people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in 2012 before taking his own life in what US authorities called a hate crime and a terrorist act. Page was also a member of the Hammerskins.
A current member of the other band that performed at the Active Club event pleaded guilty in 2012 to attempted involuntary manslaughter and served prison time for his crime. This band member punched a man outside a Michigan bar and ultimately caused the man’s death from a severe brain injury.
According to the GPAHE’s Beirich, the presence of these bands is “a major cause for concern, albeit unsurprising considering the purpose of the Active Club movement is based on beliefs in an impending, and unavoidable, race war”.
“The history of violence associated with Active Clubs is clear,” Beirich added.
Evening Vigil Turned Into Alleged Assault
Two weeks after the combat sports event on Sept. 13, members of one of the Active Clubs that organised it participated in an alleged assault in Huntington Beach, California.
Members of Patriot Front, SoCal Active Club and other far-right and neo-Nazi groups took part in an evening vigil in Huntington Beach, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, in honour of assassinated right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk.
According to reporting from the event by The LA Ten Four, a newsletter covering issues surrounding first responders in the Los Angeles area, the man who was attacked was a vigilgoer who confronted the far-right group along with several others, calling them “un-American” and “traitors” and following the group into a parking garage.
Video footage of the assault taken by The LA Ten Four shows the man being punched, kicked and stomped on by several others. At least two of the attackers appear to be wearing SoCal Active Club t-shirts, identifiable as such by photos and videos posted from the vigil.
SoCal Active Club has not responded to Bellingcat’s request for comment on their apparent involvement in this assault as of publication.
Wiley D. Cope contributed research to this piece.
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