This is a picture of the torso of Melvin Costa, the #10-ranked light heavyweight in the King of the Cage organization:

If you can get past the tattoo on his stomach that says “I have a small penis,” you might also notice that there’s a swastika on his chest. (There’s also a spiderweb tattoo on his elbow, generally worn by gang members who have murdered someone.)

I bring this up because if you haven’t already, you should read this intervew that Sam Caplan did with Costa for Caplan’s blog on ProElite.com. I think he does a great job in drawing out Costa’s mentality, which unsurprisingly is littered with flawed logic and ignorance.

King of the Cage happens to be a subsidiary of the generally respectable organization ProElite, which makes it even more shocking that Costa is allowed to fight in public events. When Caplan reached ExliteXC live events president Gary Shaw for comment, Shaw said “I’m going to sit down with [King of the Cage president] Terry Trebilcock and probably sit down with Melvin. We’ll explain what our feelings are both as a public company, and just in general, about things that are offensive to the general public.” So, Costa will get a good talking to, and might have to cover his tats when he fights in the future. Wonderful.

Obviously, this bothers me, and not just as a human being who’s disgusted by symbols of hatred and genocide. It’s not like Costa is seig-heiling after victories or denigrating minorites in interviews, but like most MMA fans I want to see this sport become as large and mainstream as possible, and the mere presence of a fighter in a public league with Nazi tattoos just gives douchebags like Jim Lampley more ammo in their contention that MMA is human dog-fighting — brutal, and performed by talentless “bar fighters.”

What do you think? Should Costa be banned from the sport, or are you in the “disagree with what you say, defend to the death your right to yada yada” camp? I certainly wouldn’t suggest that you boycott ProElite/EliteXC (because that Kimbo fight is coming up on 11/10, and there’s no way I’m missing it), but what about a boycott on King of the Cage?