Retired Angela Lee recalls the happiest memory from her ONE Championship career: “That was my proudest moment”

Newly retired ONE Championship superstar Angela Lee had a lot of memorable and happy moments while competing, but she considers her successful title defense coming from pregnancy leave as the one she's most proud of.

The fight came in March last year at the landmark ONE X event in Singapore, where she took on then-ONE women’s atomweight grand prix winner Stamp Fairtex.

Angela Lee survived an early scare in the first round when she received a solid liver punch, which she instantly felt the pain of. But she recovered and in the second round completed her chargeback by forcing Stamp into submission by way of rear-naked choke late in the frame.

In a recent interview on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, ‘Unstoppable’ shared that the title showdown with Stamp was by far the most memorable and proudest in her ONE career, saying:

“By far, my happiest moment, the one I'm most proud of, is when I was out in my pregnancy and I trained and came back and defended my title. Coming back from having my baby and having her be there witnessing that was by far my proudest moment.”

Check out the interview below:

Last week at ONE Fight Night 15 on Prime Video in Bangkok, Angela Lee, 27, vacated the ONE women’s atomweight MMA world title and announced her retirement.

She cited her desire to move on to the next chapter of her life, which includes being a mother and a wife, as well as to focus on her newly formed nonprofit organization Fightstory as the reasons why she decided to retire.

Fightstory is aimed at helping people struggling with mental health go through life, which she admitted she herself goes through every now and then. It also came about to honor the memory of her younger sister and fellow ONE fighter Victoria, who took her own life in December last year at the age of 18.

Angela Lee became ONE women’s atomweight MMA world champion in 2016 and successfully defended it five times. She was last in action in September 2022, where she vied for the women’s strawweight MMA world title against division queen Xiong Jing Nan but lost by unanimous decision.

She finished her ONE career with an 11-3 overall record.

Stamp is now the ONE women’s atomweight world champion after defeating South Korean Ham Seo Hee by third-round technical knockout for the vacant world title at ONE Fight Night 15.