Angela Lee retains atomweight title, still eyeing a double
ONE Championship fighter Angela Lee retained her world atomweight belt by forcing ONE women's strawweight world champion Xiong Jingnan to submit after Lee applied a rear naked choke on her at the ONE: Century event in Tokyo yesterday.
In the process, Lee avenged her defeat by Xiong in March, when she went up a weight class to challenge for the 31-year-old's strawweight belt.
Both fighters had their moments in the initial stages at the Ryogoku Kokugikan yesterday, but Xiong wilted under pressure from Lee's relentless attempts to take the action to the ground.
Lee, 23, did so successfully with a belly-to-back suplex in the last round.
Seizing her moment, she then took the back and sunk in a rear naked choke to force the tap.
Said Lee: "I knew she's going to be tough, but I wanted to finish this woman."
Lee added that she is not contented with just a title defence.
She said: "I truly feel I have something to prove at strawweight and I'm going after that. Even though the first two matches (in this division) didn't go my way, I'm not discouraged, I'm gonna come back and make a statement in the strawweight division."
It was a day to remember for the Lee family as Angela's brother, Christian, won his fight against Turkey's Saygid Guseyn Arslanaliev in the ONE lightweight grand prix final by unanimous decision.
He had taken on the fight with just 10 days' notice, after an injury to Eddie Alvarez.
The ONE: Century event, which was shown live in the United States for the first time, also saw Demetrious Johnson winning the flyweight grand prix final by defeating Danny Kingad on unanimous decision.
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