Lee clan to make history at ONE

At One: Unstoppable Dreams on Saturday, world atomweight champ Angela ‘Unstoppable’ Lee defends her title vs. Mei ‘V.V’ Yamaguchi. Her younger brother Christian ‘The Warrior’ challenges featherweight champ Martin ‘The Situ-Asian. Nguyen on the very same card. Angela became the youngest ever female world champ when she won the title at age 19 in 2016. With a win, Martin would at 19 become the youngest male to hold a world title. And with a win, it would be the first time a brother and sister each held world MMA titles.

This is an accumulation of all these years of training and competing alongside each other, said Angela to Matthew Scott for SCMP. From kids, to reach the highest level possible is just really a special moment for us. We’ll go out there and do our thing and have fun with it but we aren’t forgetting that this is a history-making moment.

While siblings characteristically fight, these two don’t.

Christian and I have been tight every since we were babies – we’re best friends, said Angela. It’s just the way my parents raised us to be.”

We kill ourselves every single day in the gym, said Christian. By the time we’re out of there we have no more energy left for any of that.

Angela suffered a terrible car crash in November, and was in the hospital with a concussion.

I didn’t rush the process of recovery, said Angela Lee. I took as much time as was needed to heal up. Mentally, physically, emotionally, I am feeling better than ever. It’s been a long journey back but I have been primed for this for months and this has been by far the best fight camp I have ever had.

It’s been two years and I’ve grown so much as a fighter, sharpening up every aspect of my training. It’s all come together really nicely and I’m excited to show people what I have been working on.

Christian has just one loss on his record, and it was to Nguyen via submission, at ONE Championship: Heroes of the World on August 13, 2016. But that was then.

As a fighter I have completely reinvented my game, said Christian. I’m a whole new fighter. I’ve learned in my past four fights and over the past two years and there’s just been a tremendous amount of experience and maturity that I have gained. The fight will play out very differently this time. I’m ready to go.

Angela and Christian live in Hawai’i but fight out of their father’s hometown of Singapore. Their father, a lifelong martial artist himself, guides fight camp. And younger siblings Victoria (14) and Adrian (12) may be the next ones setting records.

They are definitely little beasts on the mat, said Angela Lee. But we’re not forcing them. We want them to find their own path and their own passion.