A swastika? UFC fighter targeted for controversial tattoo. What is its meaning?

Extremism in combat sports? Previously nothing so unusual, but nowadays rather uncommon. For the first time in a while, however, it was mentioned in connection with the UFC 282 tournament. American fighter Steven Koslow has a swastika tattooed on his leg and it hasn’t left fans quiet.

UFC 282 brought several beautiful but also controversial moments. A large number of early finishes, controversial results and one controversial tattoo.

The most talked about “theft” was Paddy Pimblett’s win over Jared Gordon. There is also talk of a draw in the welterweight title fight between Jan Blachowicz and Magomed Ankalaev.

Still on the prelims card, however, social media addressed Steven Koslow. The 25-year-old American was in his first ever UFC fight and lost by TKO with less than a minute left in the third round.

While Koslow did not impress with his performance, he did impress with his tattoos in particular. He has a swastika tattooed on his left leg and ignorant people immediately started to label the fighter as an extremist or a Nazi, as they immediately saw a swastika in the tattoo.

The UFC deals with situations like this in a decisive way. They have fired a few fighters in the past because of similar issues. However, with Koslow, the situation is different. As already hinted, it was definitely not a Nazi swastika, but a Hindu swastika.

Swastikas have always been around. They have different meanings in different cultures. And Koslow, who has posted hashtags condemning racism and Nazism on social media in the past, took inspiration from the world of Japanese anime series when choosing his tattoos.

Koslow is a big fan of anime. After all, he’s not the only one among the fighters. We can mention, for example, Israel Adesanya, Death Note recently showed champion Mate Sanikidze at the OKTAGON Time press conference.

In the case of the American fighter’s tattoo, there is also inspiration from the anime Tokyo Revengers, where this symbol was used by a biker gang called Tokyo Manji.

Source: Twitter, Sportskeeda, UFC