Angela Lee: Confidence from a Newly Found Pressure

Angela Lee’s 2019 campaign has been one to forget. After going unbeaten over her first nine bouts, “Unstoppable” has tasted defeat in back-to-back outings this year; both of which took place outside of her natural weigh-class of atomweight. At One Championship: Century, Lee returns to the division she has never lost in to defend her title for the first time in over a year in a rematch with strawweight champion Xiong Jingnan.

When Lee, 23, enters the cage inside Tokyo’s Ryogoku Kokugikan, she will feel a level of pressure she has not felt in some time as she will be seeking to avenge the first loss of her career. She will also aim to defend her atomweight crown for a fourth straight time and the Singaporean will be looking to end the first losing skid of her career. A series of unfortunate setbacks has led to this moment, and Lee admits she is feeling a difference going into this fight.

“There’s definitely a lot on the line. There’s so much at stake here for me, and I realize that. It’s a lot of pressure, but I feel like it’s good pressure. It’s not really so much getting revenge in this loss against her, but I just want to go out there and do what I do best. I feel like in the past two fights I wasn’t able to really perform to the best of my abilities. And that’s frustrating, because [for] any fighter, our main goal is to live up to our potential, and deliver a performance that we know we gave it 100-percent. I feel like this fight; I’m going to be able to show that. The most important thing to me is defending my belt.”