It’s fight week for Hawaii’s Christian Lee (16-4) as the reigning ONE Championship lightweight (170 pounds) title holder will look to earn double-champ status this week, facing Kiamarian Abbasov (23-5) for the welterweight (185 pounds) crown.
“It’s just a matter of who is the better fighter. Who has better skill,” Lee told KHON2 sports director Rob DeMello. “You know, back in the day, people used to fight with no weight divisions so you would see guys much lighter beating guys that were heavier. I feel like I’m coming into this fight with the same mindset. I’m not worried about weight or who is going to be bigger, I’m training as hard as I can and I’m confident that my skill will be able to show on the night of the fight.”
The champ vs. champ showdown will headline the ONE on Prime Video 4 card in Singapore on Friday.
Lee, at just 24 years old, is already the organization’s all-time wins and finishes leader with 16 and 15, respectively.
“For me, this is the biggest fight of my career so far,” Lee said. “Since I started with my MMA journey, my goal was to always to first become a world champion and next to win a second world title in a second division. This is my next step in my career and I’ve been training really hard for this fight and I’m excited to just go in there and get to work.”
Former Bellator and UFC middleweight (185 pounds) Maki Pitolo helped Lee prepare for the move up in weight from 170 to 185 pounds. Pitolo is also fighting this weekend in for the Tuff-N-Uff organization on Sunday in Las Vegas and closed out camp at Lee’s United MMA gym in Waipio.
“It’s been great having Maki out here. I’m very grateful that he flew up from Vegas and we’ve been getting some great training in together,” Lee said of Pitolo. “I think it’s really important to surround yourself with like-minded people and we’re both preparing for our fight. We fight on the same weekend and we’ve been getting great training in together, great work and I’m happy to have him up here.”
ONE’s Amazon Prime Video main card which starts at 3:30 p.m. HST on Friday.