Gökhan Saki

جوكهان ساكي

Turkish-Dutch kickboxer and mixed martial artist born in Schiedam in 1983 to Turkish parents from Kars. He won the K-1 World Grand Prix 2008 tournament in Hawaii, became the inaugural Glory Light Heavyweight Champion in 2014, and later fought twice in the UFC.

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At a glance

Roles
athlete
Region
al-Andalus & Europe · Anatolia
Identifiers
Wikidata
Review

Life in time

1900192519501975200020252050
The Colonial Era · The Contemporary Era · The Modern Era Contemporaries: Abbas-Ali Amid Zanjani · Abbas Kiarostami · Abd al-Aziz al-Ghumari · Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda · Abd al-Rahman Badawi

Place in the story

    Unknown (unknown)

    Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.

    Summary

    Gökhan Saki is a Turkish-Dutch kickboxer and mixed martial artist, born in Schiedam on 18 October 1983 to Turkish parents from Kars. Nicknamed "The Rebel", he won the K-1 World Grand Prix 2008 tournament in Hawaii, became the inaugural Glory Light Heavyweight Champion in Istanbul in 2014, and later fought twice in the UFC. 1 2

    Career

    Saki began kickboxing at ten and gave up football for it at sixteen. Under Jan Pasztjerik he became Dutch, European and World Muay Thai champion within three years, then moved to Golden Glory. He reached the K-1 World Grand Prix tournament final in Amsterdam in 2006 and won the Hawaii tournament in 2008. At Glory 15 in Istanbul on 12 April 2014 he beat Nathan Corbett and then Tyrone Spong — whose leg fractured as Saki checked a kick — to become Glory's first light heavyweight champion. He signed with the UFC in 2017, knocked out Henrique da Silva on his debut, and lost to Khalil Rountree in 2018. The Turkish article records that he competes for Turkey. 1 3

    In the record

    No religious affiliation is recorded for Saki. None of the English, Arabic or Turkish article texts says anything about his religion; the Turkish article gives only his family background — immigrant parents from Selim in Kars — which never counts as attestation. All three editions file him in categories (Dutch Muslims in English and Arabic, Hollandalı Müslümanlar in Turkish), and category filings never count; his Wikidata item has no religion value at all. His faith therefore stands as unknown. 1 4 3 2

    Sources

    1. Gökhan Saki — English Wikipedia
    2. Gökhan Saki — Wikidata Q1194484
    3. Gökhan Saki — Turkish Wikipedia
    4. جوكهان ساكي — Arabic Wikipedia
    Cite this page

    islam.museum contributors. “Gökhan Saki”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/gokhan-saki/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-26.

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