ONE Fight Night 26: Christian Lee Developing Next Generation Of Fighters While Honoring Late Sister

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One of the biggest comeback stories in ONE Championship history is just a few days away. This Saturday, 7 December, reigning two-division ONE MMA World Champion Christian Lee defends his lightweight belt against undefeated Turkish fighter Alibeg Rasulov.

The main event match takes place at ONE Fight Night 26 inside Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand. "The Warrior" hasn't competed in ONE since the tragic passing of his younger sister, Victoria Lee, in December 2022.

After Victoria's untimely death, the Lee family closed the old gym. But Christian and his brother Adrian continued training behind the scenes. Later, Christian chose to fully renovate and relaunch the family gym, now known as Prodigy Training Center. "The Prodigy" was the nickname of his late sister, Victoria.

"Obviously, the name came from my sister's nickname, and it's just a small tribute for her in the sense of, you know, we're continuing to go to work and just have a piece of her remembrance with us," he said.

"It's nice to see everyone walking around in the gym wearing Prodigy shirts and see Adrian going out there representing it. I'm looking forward to wearing it in my fights, as well. It's a great meaning behind what we're doing."

ONE Lightweight and Welterweight MMA World Champion Lee achieved tremendous success in mixed martial arts from a very young age. Now, he aims to inspire and produce world-class fighters who could be the future faces of ONE.

Lee and his younger brother not only train at their new gym but also mentor the next generation. In 2024, Adrian made his debut in ONE and won back-to-back fights via submission.

"Not only in my fighting career, but in my coaching career, my goal is to see our fighters turn pro, do well, and then eventually make it into ONE Championship. And soon, we'll have a whole team of Prodigy representing on one of the ONE cards," the double champ said.

"Leading up to Adrian's fight, we covered a lot of the sequences that he did that led to the finish in classes. A lot of our students would say when we come back, 'That's exactly what you taught in class, and that's what coach Adrian pulled off in his fight!' I think it's great."