“That was part of my strategy” - Christian Lee reveals there’s no animosity behind aggressiveness vs. Ok Rae Yoon

Newly-crowned 2-time ONE lightweight world champion 'The Warrior' Christian Lee showed perhaps his most violent self when he soundly ripped the belt off Ok Rae Yoon's grasp at ONE 160. In a rematch of their closely-contested and controversial first fight, Lee's second go at Ok was a one-sided beatdown.

Looking at how he put the hurt on the South Korean, you'd imagine that Lee had some pent-up rage towards his rival. The Singaporean-American world champion, however, insists that there's no bad blood whatsoever.

In an interview with SCMP MMA's YouTube channel, Christian Lee was asked if frustration and anger were part of his hyper-aggressive gameplan against Ok. To this, Lee replied:

"Definitely. It felt good to go out there and get the job done quickly. I was looking forward to letting my hands go and hitting him. But there was no animosity, you know. Really like, coming forward out of the gates, controlling center, that was part of my strategy, my approach to the fight. I knew that Ok was gonna be spending his entire training camp just preparing defending my takedowns. He thought I was gonna go in with the same strategy as the last fight so I felt that I was really able to catch him off guard by going in there [by] commanding center and striking right away."

Lee's answer was a yes and a no. It is true that he needed to "fight angry" with Ok, meaning that he needed to get after him like he had a grudge. It was, however, just part of his strategy. Lee wanted to overwhelm his opponent early and never give him any space to breathe. As far as emotions go, however, Lee didn't have any real animosity for the former champion. He's just a highly passionate warrior.

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Christian Lee made short work of Ok Rae Yoon to recapture the ONE lightweight world title

At ONE 160, Christian Lee went to ward and recaptured his throne from rival Ok Rae Yoon. 'The Warrior' did exactly what his game plan dictated.

Lee immediately controlled the center of the circle and put on an aggressive assault on Ok. Both warriors threw caution to the wind as they skirted any feel-out process and violently exchanged strikes

As the round went on, however, Lee started overwhelming Ok with his swarming attacks. 'The Warrior' even knocked the South Korean down twice before the first round ended.

Come the second round, Ok was already on the defensive. Christian Lee finished Ok off by sending him to the canvas again with an overhand right. He then followed it up with concussive knees on the ground to win the bout via TKO. 'The Warrior' was also awarded a $50K performance bonus together with the shiny new ONE world championship belt.