“My mind was spiraling” - Angela Lee recalls harrowing back-to-back defeats at strawweight

Angela Lee has been doing a lot of reflecting on the highs and lows of her career now that she has retired from MMA and left behind her coveted ONE atomweight world championship.

In 2019, ‘Unstoppable’ dared to be great by moving up a weight class to challenge for the strawweight title. Unfortunately, she suffered back-to-back losses before returning to atomweight.

As two of the three fights that she lost in her entire career, all coming at the higher weight class, they were incredibly difficult to overcome at the time.

Angela Lee told the Keep it Aloha podcast about how helping young fighters from Hawaii eventually helped her to get back where she needed to be:

“The impact that those two losses had on me it just like my mind was spiraling and what helped me to get back on track and think things clearly was getting a chance to help coach this youth team from Hawaii, my sister, my brother, and a couple of our other students from our gym.”

Lee continued, adding more detail about how this detour helped her to put her own career into perspective:

“We brought them all the way overseas to Europe and they competed in Croatia and they competed in Italy. So being able to help guide them through this and seeing them just enjoy every single part of the journey brought me back to my why and made me realize, you know, where I came from and how far I've come.”

Watch the full podcast interview below:

‘Unstoppable’ isn’t just a nickname for Angela Lee, it’s a mantra

Bouncing back from her back-to-back losses in 2019, Angela Lee went on to close out the year by avenging her loss to Xiong Jing Nan and defending her atomweight title in the process.

The resilience of the champion shone through in all of her fights and it still defines her character post-retirement.

Whether it’s the mental health battles that she faced during her time as the world champion or her current day pursuits in regards to Fightstory, Lee can never be counted out.

Her ability to bounce back is what defined her career as the champion and that won’t be forgotten any time soon.