Update : Oh Noes! Hoelzer Reich Banned By Zuffa!.

See : C.U.N.T., Hoelzer Reich, & Tomorrow Belongs to The Yes Men! (December 7, 2009) for background. A good summary of Zuffa’s (Zuffa LLC is the private, multi-million dollar Las Vegas-based company that owns UFC/’Ultimate Fighting Champuionship’) decision to authorise Hoelzer Reich is available @ Another Hoelzer Reich Post, Watch Kalib Run, December 8, 2009. Fortunately for Hoelzer Reich/Zuffa/UFC, the corporate media — with one exception — has ignored the controversy thus far. Note that “The UFC is holding a show in Memphis this weekend, which also happens to be the site of the National Civil Rights Museum. A story about the irony of the company having HR as a sponsor in that environment practically writes itself and plays into every negative stereotype about MMA.”

Oh, the ironing!

Notes

Niko Puhakka is a neo-Nazi MMA from Finland. He has 88 friends on myspace (arf arf), one of whom is Dieter Samoy, lead shouter for Belgian neo-Nazi oi! band ‘Kill Baby Kill’ (KBK). Puhakka’s current fave toon, ‘My Name Is Hate’, is by KBK, and is taken from their album Product of Society. The album was released in July 2009 by neo-Nazi label NADSAT Productions. When the band toured Australia in 2008, the tour was organised by the local B&H and Hammerskins franchises. In addition to prancing about on stage, the band also did a little recording while here, helping local Hammerskin Jesse belt out the smash pop hit ‘Oh No Here Comes An Abo’.

Not surprisingly, Puhakka is also a fan of West Wall.

Blood & Honour was established in 1987 by two (dead) boneheads from England: Ian Stuart (Donaldson) and Nicky Crane. Ian Stuart warbled toons for the band Skrewdriver. He died in a car accident in 1993. Nicky Crane’s main claim to fame was appearing on the cover of an album, Strength Through Oi!. He also died in 1993 (of an AIDS-related disease). B&H continues to operate throughout the world, including Australia and the United States. It is banned in Germany.

West Wall is the second band to have evolved from the ashes of the Minnesota-based Bound For Glory (BFG). Between the dissolution of BFG and the establishment of West Wall, the band was known as Before God. All three bands are featured on the now-defunct site musicalterrorists.com. BFG had its ups and downs during its brief existence, one of the worst downs occurring when the band’s lead shouter, Eric Banks, was shot dead on January 1, 1993. (His murder was apparently committed by anti-racist skinheads.) The guiding light in all three bands has been guitarist Ed Wolbank; Wolbank also performed with the neo-Nazi oi! band the Bully Boys.

The Hammerskins are a neo-Nazi skinhead gang established in the United States but one which, like B&H, has established franchises elsewhere in the world, including Australia (although it has recently been proscribed in Spain as a terrorist organisation).

The bizarro neo-Nazi political cult known as the Hammerskins was established in the late 1980s in Dallas, Texas, as the Confederate Hammerskins. The group’s name is derived from the film The Wall (1979), in which the fascist followers of Sir Bob Geldof’s character appear as crossed hammers: the crossed hammers have since been adopted as the group’s symbol. An overview of the group’s first, glorious decade is available in ‘Hammerskin Nation’ (Intelligence Report, Fall 1999); in October, the gang celebrated its 20th anniversary with a party in Florida. Among those performing was Melbourne band Death[‘]s Head.

Thor Steinar is a German clothing label established in 2002. Like Hoelzer Reich, it adapts neo-Nazi symbology in its designs, albeit much more subtly, given Germany’s laws against the propagation of Nazism. In 2004, a court decision impelled the company to change its logo; in 2008, it was sold, supposedly to a bloody Arab.

See also : Fascist Fashion in Berlin, think demux, August 27, 2008 | Neo-Nazi Fashion: Thor Steinar and the Changing Look of the German Far Right, Rachel Nolan, Spiegel Online, November 20, 2008.