*Puhakka has been replaced by Sweden’s Diego Gonzalez for the BAMMA WORLD LIGHTWEIGHT TITLE ELIMINATOR vs. Andre Winner.
Poor old Puhakka.
Once upon a time the Finnish MMA proudly protected the nazis of Blood & Honour in Finland from ZOG. Now it seems his main concern is combating bad publicity.
After having conquered Poland in March, the Finnish bonehead has set his sights on invading England in December. A publicity blitz by the British Association of Mixed Martial Arts (BAMMA), however, appears to have had the opposite of its intended effect, and now Niko may have to look elsewhere for his next conquest as “Nazi” tattooed Niko Puhakka removed from BAMMA 8 card.
BAMMA has given no reason for Puhakka’s alleged removal from the card, but Fight Lounge speculates that “Puhakka, who has many “Nazi” inspired tattoos, including swastikas and racist slogans, has been removed from the event, most likely for his past involvement in right wing organizations”.
To be precise, Puhakka has the symbol of the neo-Nazi group ‘Blood & Honour’ (the slogan of the Hitler Youth) tattooed on his chest, and once served as a member of its security. According to B&H (‘Scene News’, Blood & Honour, No.28, 2003):
Finland’s B&H security is one of the toughest security in the world. Our security has European, World and Finnish champions in weightlifting, Finnish championship medallists in boxing and wrestling plus the bad ass freefighters [MMAs] we have in our security ranks. [Their] latest title holder comes from this event. 20.10.2003 our security member Niko, who’s never lost a single freefighting match, won the European championship title in freefighting [80kg]. He won the title from Valentin Siouljine from Belarus. We congratulate the new European champion!
Wikipedia notes that Niko “is known for having numerous neo-Nazi tattoos”; it’s less well-known that he served as security for the Finnish branch of the neo-Nazi network Blood& Honour. He was also sponsored by the US clothing company ‘Hoelzer Reich’, which in late 2009 was informed by leading MMA orgs that its products were no longer welcome to adorn its fighters.
It will be interesting to see if BAMMA remains happy for neo-Nazis to fight under its banner…
See also : Niko Puhakka : Finnish neo-Nazi (September 27, 2010).
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