By:  | October 4, 2022 8:33 am

Xiong Jing Nan was fired up in the wake of her unanimous decision win over Angela Lee in their trilogy bout at ONE on Prime Video 2. She came close to finishing her rival in the first round but her output slowed as the bout wore on.

Lee spent the last four rounds on the front foot and felt she had done enough to win. Her opponent was very upset about the decision but Xiong doesn’t think she understands the scoring criteria,

“If she doesn’t understand (the scoring) that’s her problem. You could see  I raised my hand way before they announced the results, I don’t care if people had a different opinion about who won.”

Dropping down

Xiong has not fought Lee three times and beaten her twice at strawweight but lost once at atomweight. Both champions still retain their respective belts after this weekend’s fight.

Lee remains the atomweight champion and Xiong confirmed she was looking to move down in weight to challenge her for that title again,

“I’ve been thinking about that (dropping down) for a ling time. This time she came into my territory and guess what? Next time I’m coming to her weight class.”

She clearly wants to become a two division champion and having come very close to finishing Lee in the opening round at ONE on Prime Video 2 is understandably confident.

Same question

She didn’t sound quite so enthusiastic about the possibility of defending her strawweight belt and admitted to being ‘tired’ of having to field questions about who the next challenger might be,

“I’m actually tired of answering whose next for me, its these fighters jobs to earn the opportunity. Let the promotion decide who is next, the only thing I care about is getting better and facing tougher opponents in the future.”

This was the first time that Xiong and Lee have been the distance. Their previous two fights finished late in the final round which means they have now spent the best part of 75 minutes in the cage together.

Xiong knows her opponent well and was impressed by the improvements which Lee has made,

“I think she executed a great gameplan, she’s got a great team and a great family to support her but I’m happy to fight an evolved version of Angela lee. I learned a lot.”

New version

Xiong has come in for criticism from some quarters for her perceived lack of aggression. She nearly finished Lee in the first round but ultimately ended up going the distance for the fourth time in a row.

While she can’t see anyone beating her at strawweight the champion admits she could have performed better,

“It might sound cocky but I’ll keep this belt for a long time. I’m actually not pleased with my performance tonight, I was looking for a KO but couldn’t get it. I could have got the finish but it was its great to fight this new version of Angela Lee.”