ONE Championship: Thanh Le eyes future move up to challenge Christian Lee for lightweight title
- No 3-ranked Le fully focused on Singapore title shot against featherweight champ Martin Nguyen at Inside The Matrix
- But Vietnamese-American says ‘maybe we’ll keep an eye on Christian and see if we can visit him in his division later on’
There is no doubt Thanh Le is 100 per cent focused on challenging Martin Nguyen for the ONE Championship featherweight title.
But the 35-year-old Vietnamese-American (11-2) revealed he has future designs on another belt in the Asian martial arts organisation.
The No 3-ranked Le faces “The Situ-Asian” (13-3) on a stacked Inside The Matrix card in Singapore on October 30. The match-up makes sense, given Nguyen dispatched No 2 Koyomi Matsushima (12-4) via second-round TKO last time out in August 2019, and fended off No 1 Christian Lee (13-3) twice before “The Warrior” moved up and won the lightweight title last year.
Lee defends his title against Iuri Lapicus in the co-main event next weekend, but with a heap of challengers lining up below the Moldovan, it is unlikely to think the Hawaii-based fighter will come down to his old division any time soon, though.
“No, it doesn’t bother me at all [that Christian is ranked No 1] – I think they’re doing a good job with the rankings,” Le said. “It makes sense. They fought twice. He’s lightweight champ, and we’ll see where it goes from there.
“But maybe we’ll keep an eye on Christian and see if we can visit him in his division later on,” Le added.