Anglea Lee has called it a career.
On Friday (Sept. 29, 2023), minutes before the ONE Fight Night 14 main event between Stamp Fairtex and UFC veteran Seo Hee Ham, Lee took to the ONE Championship ring to vacate her Atomweight championship and announce her retirement from the sport of mixed martial arts (MMA).
“I’m here today to officially announce my retirement,” Lee told the crowd from inside the Singapore Indoor Stadium. “It has been an incredible eight years. I just want to say thank you to the fans, to ONE Championship, to Chatri [Sityodtong], to my teams, and just to everyone. There have been so many battles, in and out of the cage.
“The last thing I want to say is this: To the fighters and to everyone out there watching right now, is that the greatest battle we will ever face won’t be with an opponent standing in front of us. The greatest battle will be within ourselves. We all go through struggles, but we all fight. And each day, we are victorious when we choose to rise up in the face of adversity. So, thank you guys so much; I love you. Thank you.”
The decision to retire from MMA comes after Lee revealed in an essay that her car crash in 2017 was a suicide attempt and that her younger sister, Victoria Lee, committed suicide late last year.
Lee has been competing since the age of 6 in combat sports, and in 2016, she became the youngest world champion when she captured the ONE Atomweight World Championship at just 19 years old. “Unbreakable” defended the title five times.
In her last fight, she came up short of becoming a two-division champion when Xiong Jing Nan defeated her at ONE on Prime Video 2.
Lee told ESPN that her younger brother Christian Lee will continue to fight. Christian is reigning ONE Lightweight World Champion and ONE Welterweight World Champion.
The 27-year-old will continue fighting, but not in the ring; instead, she will solely focus on her non-profit organization, Fight Story.
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