Christian Lee blames faulty training camp for first loss to Ok Rae Yoon

Former ONE lightweight world champion Christian Lee returns to the circle on August 26 for ONE 160. Airing live from Singapore Indoor Stadium, ‘The Warrior’ looks to recapture the world title he believes was stolen from him at ONE: Revolution last September.

Following a controversial unanimous decision loss to Ok Rae Yoon in his most recent appearance, Lee immediately called “bullsh*t” on the judges’ decision and demanded an immediate rematch as he strongly disagreed with the result of the contest. 11 months later, Lee will get his wish when the two fighters run it back in the ONE 160 main event.

While initially critical of the judges that night, Christian Lee has since opened up more about the shocking loss, saying that it was a “bad performance” on his part. ‘The Warrior’ elaborated on that in an interview with the South China Morning Post and pointed his finger at a poor training camp, a result of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic that was in full swing.

“Well, in my previous title defenses, I was lucky, I was able to get a full room of training partners. I was able to get multiple sparring partners throughout the camp, and push very hard, leading up to that fight. It's just the way things are happening with COVID, with different things in my training partners' lives.”

Catch the full interview below:

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Christian Lee says his cardio suffered due to a lack of sparring partners leading into ONE: Revolution

Christian Lee also believes that his cardio did not hold up in the later rounds of his bout with Ok Rae Yoon due to a lack of sparring partners available to train with ahead of their ONE: Revolution scrap.

“My room really just shrunk down on me -- it was just my little brother [Adrian], and, you know, one of our training partners on our youth competition team. So I was preparing, going from a room full of sparring partners and training partners to two very talented drilling partners. And I wasn't able to get the live rounds that I typically get before my fights.”

Typically pushing himself hard during training camps, Christian Lee wasn’t able to get that same push with the limited resources at his disposal.

“For me, I don't go out there and do a whole lot of running, I prefer to do my cardio training with my rounds. And so in the fight when I didn't have training partners, I think that's definitely what affected my cardio in the later rounds. Because I always push myself extremely hard. But in that last camp, just the way circumstances were, I wasn't able to get that push that I normally get.”

Lee has no intention of walking into ONE 160 without putting everything into his training camp leading up to the highly anticipated rematch.

Roughly seven weeks out, ‘The Warrior’ says that he feels great and is ready to step back into the circle and reclaim ONE gold.

“It's about seven weeks before the fight, but I'm already feeling great. I'm ready to get in there and fight."