Martin Nguyen lands devastating leg kick

Former two-division world champion Martin Nguyen is closing in on his eighth year with ONE Championship. During his tenure with the promotion, ‘The Situ-Asian’ has squared off with some of ONE’s toughest fighters, including Bibiano Fernandes, Kevin Belingon, and fellow former ONE lightweight world champion Christian Lee.

Hailing from Australia, Martin Nguyen has crossed paths with Lee on two separate occasions, resulting in two highly entertaining fights. ONE Championship’s official Instagram took a quick look back at the battles between Martin Nguyen and Christian Lee.

In the video clip, Martin Nguyen can be observed landing a vicious calf kick on Lee, nearly taking ‘The Warrior’ off his feet.

At ONE: Heroes of the World in 2016, the two first met in the circle. On that night, ‘The Situ-Asian’ scored a first-round submission via a guillotine choke on Lee. Almost two years later, the two met in the circle once again. This time, it was for Nguyen’s ONE featherweight world championship at ONE: Unstoppable Dreams. Nguyen narrowly escaped with his belt, earning a split decision victory over Lee.

Since then, Lee has shifted his focus to the lightweight division. Accepting an open challenge from newly crowned lightweight world champion Shinya Aoki, Lee met the Asian MMA legend at ONE: Enter the Dragon. Lee defeated Aoki by knockout in the second round and earned his first piece of ONE Championship gold.

Christian Lee looks to recapture his ONE Lightweight World Championship in rematch with Ok Rae Yoon at ONE 160

Following back-to-back world title defenses against Iuri Lapicus and Timofey Nastyukhin, Christian Lee met his next challenger, Ok Rae Yoon at ONE: Revolution last September. ‘The Warrior’ lost the bout via unanimous decision in what was considered to be a controversial conclusion to a very close match. Lee was very vocal about his disagreement with the judges following the shocking loss.

“To me seeing the belt be handed over to Ok, it just meant that everything I worked so hard for, to attain, was basically just robbed from me and given to another guy because of a decision of three judges.”

Lee lobbied for an immediate rematch with Ok, given the controversial nature of the decision. Luckily, neither Lee nor the fans will have to wait much longer. The two are now scheduled to run it back at ONE 160 on August 26th.

With Lee eager to prove the judges got it wrong and Ok ready to show the world that he is the rightful ONE lightweight world champion, fans are in for quite the show when the two clash in the evening’s main event.

Following his loss to Ok, Christian Lee said: