Angela and Christian Lee traversed separate challenges to arrive together for their respective title bouts on Friday in Singapore.
The Mililani siblings enter this ONE Championship fight card from different perspectives — Angela a reigning world champion and Christian a title contender — with the shared aim of leaving Singapore Indoor Stadium as the sport’s first sister-brother combo to hold division belts.
They’ll headline ONE: Unstoppable Dreams with rematches against opponents who presented their toughest professional fights to date.
Angela Lee (8-0) returns from a nearly year-long break — a gap lengthened by a frightening car accident last November — to defend her women’s atomweight world championship against Mei Yamaguchi in one of Friday’s co-main events.
“Coming back to Singapore ready to defend my title, it’s a familiar feeling,” Angela Lee said in a press conference in Singapore on Monday. “At the same time, it feels new to me, after everything. It’s like a new beginning.”
Christian Lee (9-1) takes on featherweight and lightweight champion Martin Nguyen, the fighter responsible for his lone blemish, with the featherweight belt on the line.
“All my life, all the hard work I have put into training, all the fights, they have all led me to this moment right here,” he said. “I have waited long enough for this title shot, and I am prepared to leave it all inside the cage this Friday night.”
The event is set to begin with preliminaries at 1 a.m. Hawaii time Friday. The main card is scheduled to start at 2:30 a.m.
Angela Lee returns to the cage for her third title defense just over two years removed from her unanimous decision against Yamaguchi in a five-round battle for the inaugural ONE women’s title and just under 12 months since her last fight.
Yamaguchi (17-10-1) remains the only fighter to go the distance against Lee and their rematch was originally scheduled for late November. The bout was postponed after Lee was involved in the car accident on her way to a training session in Waipio earlier that month.
Having recovered from the physical and emotional bruises, Lee, 21, makes her comeback Friday in her first appearance in the cage since submitting Istela Nunes in the second round on May 26, 2017.
“I am excited to put in the best performance of my life and remind the world who I am as a fighter, as a martial artist, and as a world champion,” she said. “I have missed the competition, the lights, the spectacle, and everything that comes with it. I live for this.”
Yamaguchi, 35, has won seven matches by submission and two by knockout or TKO and all 10 losses have come by decision.
Christian Lee’s title bout on the same card as his sister was announced in early April, giving him a shot at redemption against Nguyen (10-2).
They met on Aug. 13, 2016 with Nguyen winning by submission in the first round. Lee, 19, has won his four fights since (two by submission, two by technical knockout), the last a win over Kazunori Yokota by guillotine choke on March 9.
“I have learned and improved a lot since our last match. Things will end differently this time around,” Lee said. “Martin is a tremendous athlete and a noble warrior, but I am coming to take away the belt.”
After claiming the ONE featherweight and lightweight titles last year, Nguyen fell just short of adding a third when he dropped a split decision to Bibiano Fernandes for the bantamweight title on March 24.
“Christian is a good kid and he has come a long way, but it is my time now,” Nguyen said in the press conference. “This bout is going to end only one way, and that’s with him finishing me or me finishing him. We are both explosive and skilled, so I don’t see this bout going the distance.”