Israeli Nathan Levy v White Nationalist Ben – an Ultimate Fighting Championship
August 22, 2023 by Avi Kumar
Read on for article
UFC fighter Natan Levy made headlines for giving a White nationalist, only known as Ben, a lesson in fighting at a mixed martial arts (MMA) gym in Las Vegas.
Nathan Levy and Ben
The fight was aired on YouTube. Levy told J-Wire that contrary to media reports, he “did not invited Ben” rather, “he [Ben] invited himself.”
“I’m a professional. I don’t waste my time inviting online trolls. But if someone challenges me, I will answer the call.” he said.
It all began with an argument on X (formerly known as Twitter). A White nationalist posted a picture flexing his triceps with the caption, “This is what everybody who follows Nick Fuentes should look like.
”Someone tagged Levy, who replied that the individual was “built like a chopstick” and “Definitely not a threat.”
Ben took to social media, challenging the Jewish fighter to a brawl to defend Fuentes’s honour. Levy accepted and was surprised that Ben actually showed up, having come from California.
Levy is one of three Israelis to have fought in the UFC and has a fight record of eight wins and one loss. He is currently fighting in the lightweight category.
The martial artist said that he did not know who Fuentes was until this turn of events and promptly googled him. “He sounds like someone who lives in and streams in his mother’s basement.” Nicholas Fuentes is a White supremacist who has an online presence and has spewed antisemitic conspiracies and Holocaust denial. Ben described him as a “revisionist” and disputed the estimated figure is around 6 million Jews had died at the hands of the Nazis.
The match took place at Xtreme Couture MMA. The dojo is a Martial arts school in Nevada founded by Randy Couture, former UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight champion.
Levy’s family is of Algerian and Tunisian heritage – two countries where Jews narrowly escaped the Holocaust when their colonial power, France, was occupied by the Nazis. Levy’s wife descends from survivors. He was born in France, but the family made Aliyah when he was two months old and grew up in Herzliya. He began his martial arts journey as a teenager. The athlete cited movies and TV shows as being part of the inspiration for joining the m sport.
The 31-year-old has dabbled in multiple East Asian styles. He has a black belt in pangai moon kung fu and Uechi ryu karate. He has trained in Okinawa, Japan, under Uechi Ryu grandmaster Kiyohide Shinjo. Levy also has a brown belt in Kyokushin karate.
Levy feels that the East Asian martial arts have declined in popularity in favour of Thai kickboxing (or Muay Thai) mainly because they don’t have as much of an emphasis on competition. But he thinks they would probably be equally effective if they changed that outlook. He favours karate’s “hit and don’t get hit” attitude.
Levy later learned grappling and now has a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) and said he has adapted this into his fighting style, having won fights via submission. Levy used to train in the US, visiting back and forth but relocated permanently five years ago.
Levy said that following the incident with Ben, he has received a flurry of hate messages and so have others at the gym. Criticising Ben’s emphasis on ‘Christian identity’, he revealed that after the fight, some of the Christians who attend the gym told the White nationalist that the views he had were “distorted”.
Levy watches the Netflix TV show Cobra Kai, a sequel to the 1980s Karate Kid film series. “It’s good because it gets kids into martial arts even if it can be ‘cringy’ at times.”
“Every Jew should know how to defend themselves. Hand to hand will not to help you all the time, but it is advisable to learn something if it gives you both an advantage and health benefits. We Jews have always been targeted.”
He noted that in the US, the antisemitic abuse – especially online, has got “worse in the last 10 years”.
He believes that Holocaust education is important. “We can’t educate everyone but there is so much information about it out there. Some people just want to be in denial and we can’t change them. But we must continue educating those who want to learn.”
Levy feels that trivialising the Holocaust is not productive, “just because you had a bad day that’s not comparable to the Holocaust”.
After the fight ended, the two had their arms around each other, addressed the camera, and Ben acknowledged that “six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust”. Levy interrupted, chiding his word choice “murdered.”
He noticed that when Ben was at the gym, face-to-face, he changed his tune a bit and said he was ‘just messing around’. He was more respectful and trying to look like a decent human being.”
Levy explained, “He thought there was a difference between what you can say online and in the real world. But the consequences are everywhere and I wanted to show him that.”
Levy hopes that Ben will eventually “learn, grow up, get a good job and change for the better.“
“I’m a professional, at my level, I spar with other professionals to get better, I am not in the regular habit of inviting antisemites; online or on the street to come fight.” he insisted.
