Warning: article contains disturbing anti-semitic imagery.
Eddie Bravo is a legend in the mixed martial arts world—and in the universe of conspiracy-theory fanaticism.
But his scheduled appearance on a conspiracy-theory podcast promoting Nazi sympathizers was abruptly canceled after Right Wing Watch reached out to two streaming services carrying the podcast asking for comment about an episode promoting Holocaust denial and a guest's adoration for Adolf Hitler. Both Spotify and Rokfin removed the episode in question from their platforms, and Spotify removed all episodes.
The show—“Level Headed Podcast”—is hosted by Sean Hibbeler, Tanner Stewart, and Johnny Giampapa, a well-known Los Angeles-based tattoo artist. The three hosts produced a flat Earth “documentary” in April that featured many of the same characters they have hosted on their podcast.
The podcast, which debuted in July on Spotify and Rokfin (a streaming video service that has gained prominence among wrestlers), focuses on flat-Earth conspiracy theories and appears to have garnered only a meager following thus far. But previous guests include QAnon adherents, flat-earthers, and other conspiracy theorists—some with followings on Instagram in the tens of thousands, including Eric Dubay, ODD Tv (Matt Procella), Dave Murphy, and Santos Bonacci. Bravo, who also believes in the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, was scheduled to appear on Tuesday’s program.
Right Wing Watch reached out Friday to the hosts of the show via email and Bravo via Instagram. While Bravo did not respond for comment, an email from “Level Headed Podcast” stated that Bravo would no longer appear on Tuesday’s program. “Eddie is too busy now to join us, he has a very hectic schedule, and we are booked in terms of guests, so we will not be rescheduling,” the email read.
Bravo would have been a score for the podcast, as he was among the scheduled guests with a larger following: He spreads his jiu jitsu expertise and conspiracy theories to his 676,000 followers on Instagram, and he’s reached even larger audiences as a regular guest on the eponymous podcast of UFC color commentator Joe Rogan. In 2020, Bravo told viewers on Rogan’s show that “Q is real” and to “follow Q.” That episode racked up around 4 million views on YouTube, according to Politico, before it was taken down.
Eddie Bravo (right) appeared on the “Tin Foil Podcast” with Hibbeler (left) after Hibbeler's flat Earth “documentary” was released earlier this year.
On the July 26 episode of “Level Headed Podcast,” the hosts interviewed Eric Dubay, a yoga-practicing, rapping Nazi sympathizer described on the podcast as an “author, writer, scientist, and mixed martial arts expert.”
“I’m the guy who likes Hitler now,” Dubay said before laughing in a clip posted to the Instagram account.
“I didn’t want that to happen,” he added. “The more you look into it, flat Earth and these alternative things about World War II make way more sense.”
Giampapa, one of the co-hosts, told Dubay, “That topic right there, that’s one thing you’ll never hear come out of Alex Jones’ mouth—something about the Jews. That’s why I respect you so much, Eric.”
“People think that Hitler was a monster, an absolute monster,” Giampapa said. “He wasn’t even racist, not at all. … A lot of things he did was just amazing.”
“There was no extermination orders. They were labor camps, not death camps. And the Jews had five years to get out,” Dubay claimed. “What people don’t know, these supposed deaths that happened in the camps, there were no confirmed gas chambers. ... The actual death rates were in the hundreds of thousands.”
The relationship between some of these conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers go back years. Dubay was a guest on Eddie Bravo’s podcast back in 2017. Bravo also appeared on the “Tin Foil Podcast” with Hibbeler after their flat Earth “documentary,” which Dubay narrated, was released earlier this year. '
Beyond the Holocaust denial displayed in the July 23 episode, the Instagram account for the podcast is affiliated with another neo-Nazi revisionist account. The bio of the “Level Headed Podcast” account states, “ROKFIN PRESENTS : LEVEL HEADED PODCAST … HIBBELER | STEWART | GIAMPAPA,” and links to three Instagram accounts in the following order: Hibbeler’s and Stewart’s (judging by the photos posted in them) and “flat_earth_truther_6_million,” an account full of neo-Nazi propaganda. Like those accounts operated by Hibbeler and Stewart, the “flat_earth_truther_6_million” account links back to “@levelheadedpodcast” and promotes the show in multiple posts, suggesting that the operator of the “flat_earth_truther_6_million” account is Giampapa or is otherwise closely involved in its development.
The “flat_earth_truther_6_million” account has 17 video posts of the film “Europa: The Last Battles,” a neo-Nazi revisionist film that paints Jewish people as conspiring the downfall of the white “Aryan” race through encouraging immigration and interracial relationships; it also blames Jewish people for starting World War II. In this telling, Hitler is a misunderstood hero, and Jews are conspiring to take over the world.
Another post displays an anti-semitic caricature of a Jewish man holding a rifle with a white, blonde family in the viewfinder. Numerous others express sympathy for Nazis.
In another episode of the podcast, flagged by a reader of Right Wing Watch after initial publication of this article, Giampapa applauded Bitchute, an alternative streaming platform, for allowing “Europa: the Last Battle” to remain on the platform, stating, "That’s my shit right now."
"No, that’s a good one. That’s a great one," Hibbeler responded.
"For all the viewers, I definitely encourage you to watch that documentary. That is life-changing," Giampapa added.
Their guest on the episode, ODD TV, agreed that “it’s pretty decent,” adding that the "documentary" talks about how “the Jewish people were putting out porn, pornography.”
In discussing the film, Giampapa expressed dismay that Nazi Germany lost World War II, adding that Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, was right in saying that victory by the U.S. would mean the downfall of humanity. "Then [the film] goes into, how after World War II, we lost the war, and humanity was just, just went into, just like Goebbels said, if they win the war, America wins the war, humanity is going to fall into a deep, dark place. And look where we are now."
"And it’s been dark since then," Hibbeler agreed.
Right Wing Watch shared its findings with Spotify and Rokfin. Rokfin stated, “The post has been taken down and the channel has been alerted of the violation against our terms of service.”
Rokfin’s terms of service states that users cannot “upload, post, or transmit (collectively, ‘submit’) any video, image, text, audio recording, or other work that ... Promotes Nazi or Neo-Nazi groups, Ku Klux Klan (KKK) groups, white supremacist groups, ISIS, terrorist groups, misogynist groups, or groups that advocate anti-gay, or Holocaust denial agendas.”
One post in the @flat_earth_truther_6_million Instagram account displays an anti-semitic caricature of a Jewish man holding a rifle with a white, blonde family in the viewfinder. (Screenshot)
A Spotify representative replied with the following statement: “Spotify prohibits content on our platform that promotes, advocates or incites hatred or violence. The podcast in question has been removed for multiple violations of our content policies.”
Both actions were confirmed in email by “Level Headed Podcast.” The email also suggested that Hibbeler and Stewart are less involved in Holocaust denial than Giampapa and Dubay and that the podcast might come to an end if the hosts couldn’t find a platform to “freely” chat about the topic and others:
Johnny [Giampapa] and Eric [Dubay] have felt this way for a while, after doing thousands of hours of research. Hibbeler is new to the topic tbh, Tanner [Stewart], hasn’t spoken much about it. None of us were trying to make anyone upset, we were just ‘freely’ chatting about the topic, and others.
…
Not even sure if we are going to move forward with the podcast anymore, seeing as how free speech doesn’t exist, even on a ‘free speech platform.’
Right Wing Watch will update this story should Bravo respond to our inquiry.
MMA has had a bit of history with conspiracy theories and alt-right groups. Neo-Nazi MMA fight clubs have formed here and abroad, while prominent MMA figures have been known to promote QAnon, which views former President Donald Trump as the only one who can stop a satanic pedophile “deep state” and has anti-semitic roots in the blood libel. My colleague Karim Zidan, writing Bloody Elbow, identified nine current and former professional fighters who have promoted the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory and dozens of others who have promoted other radical conspiracy theories.
Bravo, for his part, expressed skepticism about the Holocaust in a video posted to Bitchute in 2019.
Bravo, who was also a coach in the UFC, opened his own jiu jitsu academy 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu in Los Angeles, California. That academy and the conspiracy theories floating there were featured in a Politico article about an MMA fighter who fell down the QAnon rabbit hole. In 2015, Bravo told Vice, “I always feel a need to get everyone to see things my way—the conspiracy theory way.”
This article has been updated to include additional information from a "Level Headed Podcast" episode featuring ODD TV.
