ONE Championship atomweight champion Angela Lee might be the best female fighter outside the UFC
ONE Championship atomweight phenom Angela 'Unstoppable' Lee might be the best female MMA fighter currently outside the UFC.
She's undefeated in her current weight class and the way she dominates her opponents is akin to her nickname. Her attempts at venturing into higher weight classes may have failed, but she has utterly decimated her 115-pound opponents. Judging from how her last performance went, it looks like Lee will stay atop the atomweight mountain for some time.
ONE Championship atomweight queen Angela Lee's fighting background, MMA record, and highlights
Growing up with parents who are both martial artists, Lee and her siblings excelled in pankration and later, Brazilian jiu jitsu. Her younger siblings, Christian and Victoria, are both ONE Championship fighters.
Lee started training at a young age and started competing by the age of 6. At the age of 14, she won the USA Amateur Pankration National Championships. The next year, she won gold in her division at the World Pangration Athlima Federation world championships in Greece.
With pankration being very similar to MMA, it wasn't a surprise that Lee transitioned to cagefighting. She won the Destiny MMA amateur belt in her amateur MMA debut in her native state of Hawaii. Shortly after that, she made her pro MMA debut at ONE Championship: Warrior's Quest, winning via armbar in the first-round.
With her stomping ground in pankration and a blackbelt in Brazilian jiu jitsu, Lee's grappling has made her a force to be reckoned with. Her scrappy style of jiu jitsu is dizzying to watch as she often uses wild scrambles to get to better positions.
Her submission attempts seem to come out of nowhere as she constantly tries to find openings for various attacks. Once Lee gets a hold of her opponent, they're in a world of trouble.
Over the course of her run at ONE championship, Lee has produced some of the most heart-stopping and awe-inspiring submissions in MMA. Her affinity for the rare submission 'Twister' and her penchant for bodylock suplexes have made Lee so entertaining to watch.
See her career highlights in this video:
Fighting her entire career thus far in ONE championship, Angela Lee has ammassed a 10-2 record.
She's been undefeated in her atomweight campaign, winning the title in 2016 and defending it four times. By winning the belt at 19-years-old, Lee became the youngest person to win a major MMA championship. Her rivalry with ONE Championship strawweight champ Xiong Jing Nan exemplified why MMA is often considered the pinnacle of combat sports.
With Lee's two losses coming from her fights at strawweight, it seems that 115 pounds is going to be her home for a while. She's been out of the game for more than two years due to her pregnancy but the champ is already preparing for her imminent return.
It would be interesting to see how she stacks up against other fighters in her weight class in other organizations. However, for now, she's going to stay as the queen of ONE Championship and dominate the competition there.