Photos: Ranking Christian Lee's best fights in ONE Championship

Christian Lee’s place in ONE Championship lore has long been solidified and his upcoming world title rematch against Ok Rae Yoon will add to his already remarkable legacy.

Lee, who’s just 24 years old, already boasts a fighting resume that veterans would die for. ‘The Warrior’ has 15 wins in his career, 14 of which were finishes, and is both a former ONE lightweight world champion and the ONE Lightweight World Grand Prix Champion.

He also holds the most knockouts across all sports in ONE Championship with 10.

Despite losing his gold to South Korea’s Ok Rae Yoon, Lee is still among the best fighters in the world and he wants nothing more than to take back the belt he once had possession of.

The Singaporean-American star is hellbent on reclaiming the ONE lightweight world title from Ok in their much-anticipated rematch at ONE 160: Ok vs. Lee II, which goes down this Friday and will be broadcast live from the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

At such a young age, Lee’s credentials are poised to get better and he’ll try to do just that when he attempts to beat Ok convincingly in their second go-around.

That said, we take a look at Christian Lee’s best fights inside the circle.

#5. Christian Lee vs. Ok Rae Yoon

Lee lost his world title in this fight, but the Evolve MMA star put on an absolute show against Ok at ONE: Revolution and some observers echoed that statement by suggesting that he should have had his hand raised.

Lee and Ok fought an outright barnburner in that September 2021 encounter, with the former world champion landing some of the nastiest offense the South Korean star took in his career.

Ok had to dig into the deepest of his energy reserves just to survive what Lee gave him in that first fight. Lee tagged the Team Mad fighter with some forceful hooks and even had the South Korean star in a tight standing choke in the second round.

Though it ended in a loss for Lee, it just set up what could be a wicked world title rematch between two members of lightweight royalty.

#4. Christian Lee vs. Dagi Arslanaliev

Despite already holding the lightweight gold, Christian Lee felt that fighting in the final of the ONE Lightweight World Grand Prix was his destined responsibility.

The lightweight king was slotted into the tournament final on 10 days’ notice after Eddie Alvarez pulled out of the fight due to injury.

Across the circle from Lee was the always dangerous Dagi Arslanaliev. The two delivered one of the greatest fights ever seen inside Tokyo’s Ryogoku Kokugikan at ONE: Century Part I in October 2019.

Lee was an unrelenting offensive juggernaut against Arslanaliev, who at that point had six first-round finishes. The reigning ONE lightweight world champion took down Arslanaliev with arguably the most creative wrestling offense in his career.

In the end, Lee took a dominant unanimous decision win and left Japan with one more belt than when he flew in.

#3. Christian Lee vs. Iuri Lapicus

A year after taking the World Grand Prix silverware, Lee was in his first world title defense and the unfortunate person who got run over was Moldova’s Iuri Lapicus at ONE: Inside the Matrix.

Lapicus, who was undefeated at that point, used his grappling to take the early control of the match, but that was all the offense he could muster against Lee.

A master at practically any area of the sport, Lee worked his way out of Lapicus’ control and found himself taking the dominant position on the ground.

Lee then rained a cracking maelstrom of ground-and-pound down onto Lapicus’ head, leaving the referee no choice but to stop the contest at 2:19 of the first.

The win wasn’t just Lee’s first world title defense, it was also a statement victory that silenced the critics, who saw his world championship victory as a flash in the pan moment.

#2. Christian Lee vs. Timofey Nastyukhin

World champions always have the hardest time in the world, and the same can be said in Lee’s second world title defense.

After finishing off Lapicus, Lee was then scheduled to defend the ONE lightweight world title against Russian knockout artist Timofey Nastyukhin.

Despite Nastyukhin’s reputation, it was Lee who did the headhunting during their fight at ONE on TNT II in April 2021.

After a brief moment of gaging each other out, Lee tagged Nastyukhin with a looping left cross that quickly sent the Russian down.

Lee then took dominant position and proceeded to blast Nastyukhin with punishing ground strikes that forced the referee to stop the match 1:13 into the first round. The win also marked Lee’s promotion-leading 10th knockout.

#1. Christian Lee vs. Shinya Aoki

This was the fight that started the young legend that is Christian Lee.

Taking on then-ONE lightweight world champion and Japanese icon Shinya Aoki was always going to be a tough ordeal, but Lee took his opportunity and ran with it.

A jam-packed Singapore Indoor Stadium, including Olympic hero Michael Phelps, bore witness to how Lee started his own mythos when he dethroned Aoki at ONE: Enter the Dragon in May 2019.

The match started in typical Aoki fashion, with the Japanese submission machine controlling the pace with his grappling.

‘Tobikan Judan’ even had Lee in a tight armbar in the first round, but the Singaporean-American star was able to wriggle his way out of the submission attempt and survive the first round with much of his wits still with him.

The second round, however, was Lee’s domain and his striking proved to be the difference-maker. He clocked Aoki with several punches that quickly dropped the Japanese legend.

A couple more punches in, and some official announcements, and Lee was declared the new ONE lightweight world champion.