Angela Lee considering move to strawweight
Angela Lee: “Atomweight has always been a difficult cut for me, a difficult weight to maintain. I think that the next division would be my ideal weight.”
Undefeated ONE Championship women’s atomweight champion Angela Lee is mediagenic in the extreme. And ‘Unstoppable’ is the world. Born in Vancouver to a Singaporean father and a South Korean mother, Lee moved to Hawai’i at the age of 7. So she’s a Singaporean-Korean-Canadian-American-Hawai’ian fighter. And her brother fights professionally; no surprise as both their parents are martial artists.
For the record, she fights under the flag of Singapore.
The 21-year-old spoke recently with Jonathan Lee for The New Paper at a media lunch in Singapore and discussed a potential switch to the strawweight division.
“Moving up to the strawweight division is something I do have in mind,” said Lee. “But I am not sure when I will make that transition over. Atomweight has always been a difficult cut for me, a difficult weight to maintain. I think that the next division would be my ideal weight.
“The strawweight division has more girls now and ONE Championship has really been working hard to build that division. So, I would love to make my way over. I think I have done a good job here in the atomweight division but I still have this match with Mei. But after that from 2018 onwards, who knows?”
When she moves up to strawweight, a fight with former Olympic swimmer May Ooi is in the offing. Ooi is coming off an early submission win over Ann ‘Athena’ Osman at ONE Championship: Quest for Greatness on August 18. However, Lee’s immediate job is an atomweight title defense in a rematch with Japan’s Mei Yamaguchi at ONE Championship: Immortal Pursuit on November 24.
“Going into a fight, you think of all the possible scenarios,” said Lee. “Not necessarily defeat, but the thought of my opponent getting the best of me does cross my mind. But when I think of that, I also think about how much being a world champion means to me. I am reminded of the hard work that I put in to get to where I am right now. Thinking of that motivates me that much more to work even harder so that it does not happen.
“I am not scared of getting hurt, I do not think about it. Whatever happens in the ring happens and I deal with the consequences.
“I am not afraid of losing, but I am more afraid of being a disappointment. This time round, I am going to do it right.”
