ONE Championship: Xiong Jingnan warns Angela Lee ‘next time I’m coming to your weight class’
- Xiong refuses to put bitter rivalry to bed after beating Lee by unanimous decision at ONE on Prime Video 2 in trilogy title fight
- Strawweight champ vows to challenge Lee for atomweight belt again while her own division’s contenders ‘earn the opportunity’
Xiong Jingnan and Angela Lee’s ONE Championship rivalry is seemingly far from over.
The pair met for a third time in the main event of ONE on Prime Video 2 last Saturday in Singapore. China’s Xiong, the promotion’s strawweight MMA champion, won the fight by unanimous decision after five thrilling rounds of action – her seventh successful title defence.
That verdict brought the 34-year-old to 2-1 in matchups with Lee, who holds the title one division south at atomweight. Ordinarily, their rivalry would probably end here, but Lee still has something Xiong wants: the atomweight belt.
“This time she came into my territory,” Xiong (18-2) said during a post-fight virtual media scrum after Saturday’s event at Singapore Indoor Stadium. “Guess what? Next time I’m coming to her weight class.”
Xiong’s first fight with Lee (11-3) took place in Tokyo in March 2019, when she defended her belt with a fifth-round TKO. She then dropped down to atomweight to challenge Lee for her title in October of the same year, also in Tokyo, but lost by fifth-round submission.
After posting a second strawweight win over Lee on Saturday, Xiong has a better claim than ever to another shot at the Canadian-American’s atomweight title.
“We can do it three or five times – I will win those fights in the future,” she said.