SINGAPORE — Vancouver-born fighter Angela (Unstoppable) Lee became One Championship’s first female title-holder Friday when she won a five-round decision over Japanese veteran Mei Yamaguchi.
The 19-year-old Lee improved to 6-0-0 as she claimed the Asian-based promotion’s atomweight championship, which covers 105 to 115 pounds, before 12,000 in the main event at Singapore Indoor Stadium.
The title comes less than a year after Lee made her pro debut on May 22, 2015.
Yamaguchi proved to Lee’s toughest challenge. Lee, who has dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship and makes her home in Hawaii, needed just 22 minutes 40 seconds to finish her first five opponents. Yamaguchi, who has never been stopped, lasted 25 minutes.
Yamaguchi (15-9-0) started strong but Lee came on late to score the points she needed.
In the co-main event, Brazil’s Roger Gracie (8-2-0) submitted Poland’s Michal Pasternak (11-1-0) by arm-triangle choke at 2:13 of the first round to win the organization’s the light-heavyweight world championship on the line.
Lee, who lives on the island of Oahu, comes from a fighting family. Father Ken and mother Jewelz are decorated martial artists who teach at their United MMA gym in Waipahu where Angela and 17-year-old brother Christian, who is 3-0-0 in One Championship action, are instructors.
Younger sister Victoria and brother Adrian also train in mixed martial arts.
Ken was born in Singapore and Jewelz in South Korea. She moved to Hawaii at a young age while he came to Canada at the age of four. They met in Hawaii when Ken went there for high school, moving to Canada after graduation and eventually marrying.
Angela lived in Vancouver and elsewhere in Canada until she was seven, when the family moved to Hawaii. Angela graduated from high school in 2014. She had three amateur fights then signed with One Championship.
Both Lees fight under the Singapore flag and Angela has held training camps in both Singapore and Hawaii.
One Championship’s CEO is Edmonton-born Victor Cui.
