Christian Lee was taking no prisoners in the post fight interviews following his win at ONE 160 last Friday. The 24 year old avenged his contentious decision loss to Ok Rae Yoon and recaptured the lightweight title.
Asked after the win over Yoon where he felt his place was in the pantheon of current lightweights Lee left no room for doubt,
“I feel that I’m the best lightweight fighter in the world, across any organization. So I would love to put that out there, and I’d love to prove it.”
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Favourite moment
It was Lee’s 20th ONE Championship fight and seven of these have had titles on the line. He is only in his mid 20s but has created enough memories to last a lifetime.
But Lee who recently became a father for the first time says that this is his favourite moment of all,
“This has got to be the best moment in my career. I’ve got my family with me. I’ve got them in my corner. I’ve got my teammates with me, my baby, and my wife.”
Lee knocked out Shinya Aoki to win the lightweight title. But he considers last Friday’s win over Lee to be the best of his entire
“I’ve been training for almost a whole year straight for this fight. To get a knockout over a tough opponent like Ok Rae Yoon, this has got to be the best win for me.”
Christian Lee is RELENTLESS 🔥@ChristianLeeMMA #ONE160 #ONEChampionship pic.twitter.com/7GR1MwWkD3
— ONE Championship (@ONEChampionship) August 31, 2022
Perfect response
Lee was shocked when all three judges awarded the first fight to Ok. Stopping the Korean in the second round was the perfect response and he feels that the knockout has ended the saga once and for all,
“This rematch was a continuation of our first fight. To me, the start of round one was the continuation, it was round six. So the only way this could have ended for good is to get a finish.”
Given that the two fighters are 1-1 there could be some merits in putting on a third fight. But Lee feels he should be 2-0 and that there is no need for him to face the Korean again,
“For me, finishing Ok the way I did, there’s no need for a rematch because I feel that I won the first time. And I made it sure that I won the second time. So this is it.”
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Top five
That raises the question of who exactly Lee’s next opponent will be. Having waited nearly a year for the rematch he might be hungry to get back in the cage again soon but there isn’t any one contender that particularly stands out for the champion,
“I think it only makes sense to work with our rankings. See who’s in the top five and let them sort it out. So let’s have a few of the top-five contenders fight their way up to the top, and then I’ll take whoever’s next there.”
