With Saturday’s “One Championship: X” event marking the promotion’s 10-year anniversary, CEO Chatri Sityodtong wanted his biggest star on the top of the marquee.
Mililani’s Angela Lee will step inside a cage for the first time since 2019 when she defends her atomweight world title against Stamp Fairtex in the main event of a 20-bout card that will span more than 11 hours, culminating in Lee’s first fight as a mother broadcast on pay-per-view at approximately 5 a.m. on Saturday.
The six-fight pay-per-view broadcast begins at 2 a.m., after 14 earlier fights that will be streamed on the company’s website, where you can order the PPV.
The 25-year-old Lee, whom the company has turned into the face of the organization since her debut in 2015, is fighting for the first time since submitting Xiong Jing Nan in the fifth round of a title defense in October 2019.
Since then, there has been a COVID-19 pandemic, during which Lee gave birth to a daughter, Ava Marie, in April of last year.
“Everything has been different about this training camp,” Lee said at Tuesday’s One Championship press conference in Singapore. “I’ve been preparing for this fight for five months now, double the amount of time I usually get for a fight camp.
“Trying to figure out the schedule to train and with a baby, it’s challenging, but you know, I’m really lucky that I have an amazing family, support team and am able to do what I love to do and be a mom.”
In the 10 years since One Championships’s debut event, no fighter has benefited more from it than Lee, who received the biggest cheer at the press conference.
Fans will be allowed to attend the event for the first time since the start of the pandemic, but there still will be limited capacity.
Lee debuted with the organization when she was 18 years old and went viral on social media when she won a fight using a twister to submit her opponent.
She became the company’s first female world champion two months shy of her 20th birthday and still has never been beaten at 115 pounds.
Now, she is a mother, and although she has spent more than a quarter of her life as an MMA fighter, this walk to the cage will be like no other.
“I think this fight represents a lot for me,” Lee said. “It’s been a crazy journey these past two years, but I’ve worked harder than ever and I definitely want to make a statement and show that women and mothers of all people are the strongest on the planet.”
During her time away to begin a family, Lee admitted she had her eye on Fairtex, who won an atomweight grand prix set up by the company to determine another champion while Lee was away.
Fairtex won three fights between September and December of last year and is a real threat to hand Lee her first loss at atomweight.
Fairtex (8-1 overall) has won world championships in One Championship in mixed martial arts, kickboxing and Muay Thai.
“Stamp is by far the most credentialed fighter that I’ve fought,” Lee said. “She’s developed really fast in MMA, so I’m very impressed in how she was able to work her way through the Grand Prix tournament. I kept my eye on her and now we’re finally going to be able to meet in the cage.”
Fairtex, who is one year younger than Lee, had her first Muay Thai fight at 18 and began her mixed martial arts career at 20.
“I’ve really been preparing for this, and as I’ve said before that she was my idol,” Fairtex said of Lee through an interpreter. “It’ll be a very great opportunity for me to finally have a chance to fight with Angela, someone that I look up to, and I’m ready to take the belt back home.”
On a card that includes Demetrious Johnson, Shinya Aoki, Yoshihiro Akiyama, Eduard Folayang and other world champions in MMA, kickboxing and Muay Thai, it is Lee’s name that headlines above them all.
“It’s a huge honor,” Lee said. “(There’s) a lot of pressure and there’s a lot of weight on my shoulders coming into this fight as it is having the time off, but I’m definitely going to make up for that and make sure that I put on a great performance on Saturday night.”
