Unbeaten Shamil Erdogan Shrugs Off Pressure Before Paul Elliott Clash
Thirteen professional fights have produced 13 wins and not a single loss for Shamil Erdogan. The Turkish heavyweight could not care less about that last number.
The 36-year-old faces Paul “King of the North” Elliott in the heavyweight MMA main event of ONE Fight Night 48 on Prime Video on Friday, October 2. The card airs live in U.S. primetime from Bangkok’s Lumpinee Stadium.
Erdogan has won all five of his ONE appearances, including two finishes of former two-division ONE MMA World Champion “The Burmese Python” Aung La N Sang. Those wins came during a rapid climb from middleweight all the way to heavyweight.
His arrival in the new division produced a first-round ground-and-pound finish of Ryugo “Rising Rock Star” Takeuchi at ONE 173 in Tokyo. Most fighters would guard a record like that closely, but Erdogan insists he barely notices it.
“Honestly, for me that zero in the losses column doesn’t mean anything at all. I don’t even think about it. I just go out there inside the [ring] and do my job,” Erdogan said.
The Kremost Fight Club and Tiger Muay Thai representative applies the same mindset to every opponent. Anyone who shares the global stage with him, he believes, deserves to be treated as a genuine threat.
Elliott makes that respect easy. The Englishman comes off a third-round finish of Takeuchi and a six-second head kick knockout of Regan Upshaw.
“Paul Elliott is a very tough [and] strong fighter. I am not underestimating him at all. He’s very good with his legs. He’s very good on the feet,” Erdogan said.
“We all saw his last fight – his kicks fly really well. That was such a beautiful knockout. I think it’s [one of] the fastest knockouts in ONE Championship. And I think that is his biggest danger; the danger coming from his legs.”
A decorated grappler against a man whose kicks can end a fight in seconds rarely makes for a slow night. Erdogan is counting on exactly that.
“I think I’m going to have a very interesting fight with him, and I think our fans are going to like it,” he said.
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