‘Unstoppable’ Angela Lee Should Have Died But Instead, She’s Conquered the MMA World and is the ONE Women’s Atomweight Champion…
Angela Lee is one of the most exciting fighters in the world of combat sports today. The Singaporean ONE women’s atomweight champion has just defended her title for a third time against Mei Yamaguchi, in her native country, at ONE: Unstoppable Dreams.
It’s been an incredible journey; especially when you consider that she almost died in a car crash back in November of 2017. She escaped with cuts, bruises and concussion after her Audi flipped over six times in Waipio, Hawaii, where she lives and trains. Since then she’s been trying to get her head back in the right place.
The fight against Yamaguchi was a rematch of what is arguably the best fight in the history of WMMA. It genuinely was an unbelievably contest and if you haven’t seen it, you should go watch it now.
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Professional
Lee took the unanimous decision after five back and forth rounds of intense fighting. She’s very tall for her weight class and made it count against Yamaguchi, who struggled to find her range early on. Lee managed to pick off shots and worked the clinch very well against the shorter fighter.
In the second round, she came very close to getting an armbar submission, with the referee right on top of the pair as Yamaguchi’s arm looked to be crazily hyperextended. She also succeeded in raining down ground and pound on the Japanese fighter.
But Yamaguchi wasn’t finished. In the final two rounds, she came out of the blocks hard, slamming Lee into the floor and scoring some powerful shots. She was the physically stronger fighter and looked to have Lee rattled. However, at the end of the day, Lee proved she is ‘Unstoppable’ and won the unanimous decision.
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Heartbreaking
Earlier in the night, Lee’s younger brother Christian lost out on a unanimous decision to ONE’s own double champion Martin Nguyen. The Australian currently holds the lightweight and featherweight titles. He tried to become the first MMA fighter in the world to hold three titles at the same time but dropped a decision loss to welterweight champion Bibiano Fernandes.
It was intensely emotional watching Christian Lee walk his sister out to the cage. He carried the bruises from his own fight and Angela was clearly emotional as she went back to work for the first time since her near-death experience.
Angela Lee overcame all fears and insecurities she had from her car accident, scoring a unanimous decision win over Mei Yamaguchi and retaining ONE gold! #UnstoppableDreams #Singapore #MartialArts pic.twitter.com/rC6Kxr9Z5O
— ONE Championship (@ONEChampionship) May 18, 2018
Rapid Rise
ONE is currently seeing an incredible rise in Asia. Many western fans of MMA don’t realize just how big the promotion has become in the far east. There’s very little trash-talk and posturing like in the UFC. It’s all about the fights.
The company is now valued at over $1 billion. Ok, it’s not quite the $4 billion that WME-IMG (over)paid for the UFC, but it’s still a lot of money. And they’re doing it the right way, building their own champions like Angela Lee and Martin Nguyen, instead of robbing the UFC’s castoffs. They’re definitely worth a watch.
