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Former ONE lightweight world champion Christian Lee would love to see former Bellator and UFC titleholder Eddie Alvarez move up the ranks and get a world title shot.
‘The Underground King’ has had a couple of losses in ONE, with only one win against Filipino icon Eduard Folayang since he began his journey with ONE Championship in 2019.
However, Alvarez’s fight to get back into the win column again hasn’t gone unnoticed by Lee. With the way things are going in the lightweight division, as well as the featherweight class, where Alvarez could also compete, just one win could potentially put the MMA legend back into position for a championship opportunity.
With that said, ‘The Warrior’ Lee told SCMP MMA:
“Yeah, I think so. Especially with the Amazon Prime deal, they're trying to break into the US market. I think Eddie's definitely a guy that they want going for the title. So, I would love to see him get a title shot. I mean, he's putting in a lot of work throughout his career, and really, he's at the latter half of it. So, I mean, if his one last goal is to get a shot at the ONE Championship belt, then hopefully he gets there.”
Catch the full interview below:
Christian Lee and Eddie Alvarez are coming off losses from the same man, current lightweight world champion Ok Rae Yoon.
Lee amassed a dominant six-fight win streak before losing the belt to the South Korean star at ONE: Revolution. Since then, the Singapore-American phenom has been on a quest to recapture his belt. He'll have the chance to do just that on August 26 at ONE 160.
With a lot of hypotheticals thrown around, if Lee does manage to recapture the belt, then a matchup with ‘The Underground King’ could well be on the way.
Christian Lee brands transition to submission grappling a future possibility
Christian Lee has considered transitioning to submission grappling, but said in an interview with ONE that he wants to finish what he set out to do in MMA first.
With the opportunity to become world champion again on August 26, Lee could eventually make the transition to grappling and face top grapplers like the Ruotolo brothers and Shinya Aoki at lightweight.
Even former rival Martin Nguyen has previously called for a grappling match with Lee. Tempting as the idea sounds, the 25-year-old standout will be sticking to MMA for now.
Christian Lee told ONE:
“While I’m fighting, while I’m still active in MMA, I think I’m going to stick to that. But you know, maybe later on down the line, once I’m not so active in MMA, then I’ll look to do other things like grappling.”
