Undefeated Russian sensation Shamil Erdogan had anything but an easy upbringing, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. The 34-year-old is now preparing for his sophomore appearance in ONE, as he’s set to battle former two-division World Champion Aung La N Sang in a pivotal middleweight MMA scrap on September 6 at ONE 168: Denver.

While preparing for his appearance at ONE Championship’s much-anticipated second U.S. event, Shamil Erdogan recently shared with the promotion about his childhood. Let’s have a look at it

From Dagestan’s rugged mountains to MMA’s pinnacle

That contest goes down live in U.S. primetime at Ball Arena. Boasting a pristine 9-0 professional MMA record and a wealth of accolades in the sport of wrestling, Erdogan is undeniably one of MMA’s toughest athletes.

He owes much of that toughness to his hard-scrabble childhood in the mountains of Dagestan – a region renowned for producing elite MMA fighters and world-class grapplers. Looking back on his youth, Erdogan recalls his loving, but strict parents. He says that his father instilled in him a sense of identity as well as discipline:

“I always thank God for giving me such parents. My parents loved me and my brother. My mother gave us her love, and my father was strict. This was the ideal way to raise children at that time.”

Shamil Erdogan’s Childhood and Its Impact on His MMA Career

Growing up in Dagestan, Erdogan enjoyed a great deal of freedom but was no stranger to physical altercations. “You have to understand: My parents grew up and lived in the Soviet Union, where the state tried to take away a man’s identity and turn him into a robot. But my father succeeded in preserving the code of the highlander – this spirit of freedom and honor – and passed it on to me, for which I am very grateful to him.”

Today, he’s immensely grateful for that childhood, as he knows it forged him into the MMA fighter that he is today. Erdogan added: “In the ’90s, when children had neither tablets nor mobiles, we could say that we lived in the street and lived by its laws, where the weak couldn’t live, where there were physical and moral violations, where we couldn’t show weakness. We lived like a pack of wolves.”

What’s your take on Erdogan’s statement? State your thoughts in the comments below.