Remembering Victoria Lee - a look back at The Prodigy's ONE Championship career

Almost 10 months have passed, but it still feels surreal that Victoria Lee is no longer with us.

In a brave tell-all with The Players’ Tribune, Victoria’s eldest sister Angela Lee recently detailed her own mental health struggles.

The reigning ONE women’s atomweight MMA world champion also confirmed, for the first time ever, that her sister Victoria did take her own life at just 18 years of age.

While her shocking passing is one of the biggest tragedies in mixed martial arts, her family, friends and fans all remember her as a ray of sunshine.

Apart from her brilliant MMA skills, Victoria is beloved for her innocence and her big smile that lit up entire rooms.

Inside the Circle, the Evolve MMA standout was a prodigy in every sense of the word.

Victoria Lee was truly a superstar in the making and was clearly the heir apparent to Angela's throne.

She went 3-0 under the ONE banner, with all her wins coming by way of highlight-reel-worthy finishes.

Today, we’ll be remembering Victoria Lee’s short but certainly sweet MMA career.

Victoria Lee was destined for greatness

Fighting has always been part of the Lee family D.N.A, and Victoria was pretty much around the sport since she was practically in diapers.

Under the guidance of her parents Ken and Jewelz Lee, ‘The Prodigy’ followed the footsteps of her ONE world champion siblings Angela and Christian. Their youngest sibling Adrian also eventually followed suit.

Victoria was a natural at a young age, becoming a two-time Hawaiian Pankration Junior World Champion, Hawaii State Wrestling Champion and IMMAF Junior World Champion.

ONE Championship was so impressed that they offered her a contract in 2020 when she was just 16 years old, making her the youngest fighter on the roster.

Soon enough, the entire world witnessed just how sensational the third Lee sibling was. In her promotional debut at ONE: Fists of Fury in 2021, Victoria took on Thai sensation Sunisa Srisen.

Lee quickly showed why she was the perfect mix of her sibling’s best attributes, displaying Angela’s fearsome tenacity and Christian’s methodical yet cerebral style.

The teenage sensation still looked rough around the edges but turned a lot of heads with her crisp boxing.

By round 2, Lee finally shook off the cobwebs and introduced herself to the world with a vicious finish.

She pulled off an impressive body lock takedown, a Lee family signature, and went to work. After flattening out Sunisa, Lee wrapped a textbook rear naked choke finish for the first professional win of her career.

Here’s Victoria Lee’s stunning ONE debut:

Lee returned a few months later at ONE: Battleground against Wang Luping. ‘The Prodigy’ went to work right away, taking the fight to the ground and not allowing her opponent to mount any offense.

Wang was forced to be on the defensive for the majority of the fight, as Lee secured the dominant position and caved her face in with heavy punches and elbows.

Victoria Lee went straight for the kill with less than two minutes left in the round, locking a beautiful mounted triangle. She kept the pressure with more punishing strikes before forcing the tap via a nasty triangle armbar.

Watch the full fight here:

Lee then faced her stiffest challenge at ONE: Revolution when she faced Victoria Souza. After taking some hard shots on feet from the Brazilian, the Singaporean-American showed her resilience by weathering the storm and bringing the fight to her wheelhouse.

‘The Prodigy’ muscled her way to a takedown but found it hard to submit Souza in the first five minutes. The second round was more of the same, with Souza winning the striking battle and Lee evening the odds with her grappling.

The 18-year-old prodigy, though, adjusted well and softened Souza on the ground with punishing ground and pound to the head and body. After a failed guillotine attempt, Victoria Lee finished the job with wicked elbows from side control for the TKO finish.

Here’s the full fight: