“It’s just training” - Adrian Lee says his sibling rivalry with older brother Christian all part of their evolution as fighters

Brothers will always have a sibling rivalry, and the same can be said between Adrian Lee and his older brother Christian.

The Lee brothers have been going at it since Adrian was just starting out his martial arts journey, and their scraps have gone well until both of them are under the ONE Championship banner.

In an interview on the Story of the Fight podcast, Adrian said he and Christian would often go all out in training and try to one-up each other as often as possible.

Adrian added that while their sparring sessions get intense, he and his brother know that their time in the gym is essential to their overall development.

"No, no. For me, my brother's been beating me up for I don't know how long. So for me, it's just training. It's just like, it's great that we're helping each other evolve our games, yeah, 100%," said Adrian Lee.

Christian is eight years older than Adrian and started his ONE Championship career when Adrian was just eight.

The 26-year-old ultimately built one of the greatest resumes in ONE Championship history and currently holds the ONE lightweight and welterweight MMA world titles.

Adrian eventually followed in his brother's footsteps and made his ONE Championship debut in June 2024 against Antonio Mammarella at ONE 170.

Much like Christian, Adrian operates at an insane pace and now has two submission victories over Mammeralla and Nico Cornejo.

Adrian now looks to make it three consecutive wins when he faces off against Shozo Isojima in a lightweight MMA contest at ONE 172: Takeru vs. Rodtang on March 23 at the historic Saitama Super Arena.

ONE 172 is available live on pay-per-view at watch.onefc.com.

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Adrian Lee admits he felt immense pressure when he made his professional debut

Adrian Lee redefined the term dominant when he ran through the competition in the amateur circuit in his hometown of Hawaii, but he knew jumping into the professional ranks would be a different stage altogether.

In the same interview with Story of the Fight, the youngest of the Lee siblings admitted he felt a different kind of pressure heading into his professional debut:

"I definitely felt the pressure, like, all the expectations. Once you go pro, there's no going back. For me, there has never been going back. There's no giving up, there's no outs."

Watch Adrian's entire interview below: