“Angela Lee has always been my long-term goal” - Tiffany Teo gunning for the atomweight queen

Now that she’s part of the ONE women’s atomweight division, Tiffany Teo believes it’s only a matter of time before she has a date with destiny with reigning divisional queen Angela Lee.

While ‘No Chil’ has yet to taste ONE world championship gold, she managed to secure two world title shots against Xiong Jing Nan at her old stomping grounds at the women’s 125-pound ranks.

After moving to a lower weight class, Tiffany Teo intends to become the no.1 contender anew and hopes to get the job done this time around. But to get there, she must first get past Ritu Phogat at ONE 161: Petchmorakot vs. Tawanchai, this Thursday, September 29, at Singapore Indoor Stadium.

In an exclusive interview with ONE Championship, the 32-year-old Singaporean opened up about what led to her decision to start anew at 115 pounds. She shared:

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I’ve been fighting at strawweight for the bulk of my career, and I feel like I’m at the point whereby I’ve fought almost all of the girls in the division. I don’t see any potential opponents.”

She continued:

“So I’m just keeping my options open because I feel like I’m in the prime of my career right now and I’ll be looking to fight more often. Atomweight is a really stacked division so I decided to just go down so that I can be more active.”

Tiffany Teo has run through the who’s who at women’s strawweight. The former boxing world champion has impressive wins over the likes of Michelle Nicoloni and Ayaka Miura. She even left the division on a winning note after choking out Meng Bo this past January at ONE: Heavy Hitters.

However, the gold strap eluded Teo as she couldn’t get over the hurdle presented by the longtime world champion Xiong. ‘The Panda’ viciously finished her in their first encounter in 2018.

Tiffany Teo made another run for the title in 2020 and put up a much better effort against the formidable Chinese superstar. However, she was once again outclassed after five rounds.

The Singaporean fully intends to make a match happen between her and Angela Lee, and believes that this move to atomweight will help her achieve that goal, no matter the division. She told ONE:

“Angela [Lee] has always been my long-term goal, and it’s just perfect - she’s going up to strawweight, I’m going down to atomweight, so I got all the ground covered to make a fight happen with her.”

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Tiffany Teo sides with Xiong Jing Nan in trilogy bout with Angela Lee

For now, ‘No Chill’ doesn’t mind being a spectator, as Xiong and Lee deal with their unfinished business at ONE on Prime Video 2 on Friday, September 30, live on US Primetime.

Since she knows what ‘The Panda’ is capable of inside the Circle, Tiffany Teo bared that Xiong will win the trilogy in devastating fashion, no less. She told ONE in an earlier interview:

“I do foresee Xiong finishing via body shot or a body kick because that’s definitely one thing that she has to realize, looking at Angela’s fights. That’s definitely one of Angela’s weaknesses - the body. I’m sure Xiong has a good team at Evolve trying to formulate a game plan looking to capitalize on that.”