Christian Lee ‘More Than Happy’ to Accept Fight With Eddie Alvarez
ONE Lightweight World Champion Christian “The Warrior” Lee gets asked questions about a potential fight with former UFC Lightweight World Champion Eddie “The Underground King” Alvarez a lot these days.
In fact, ever since Lee won the title in 2019, shortly after Alvarez’ ONE debut, discussion has been brewing about pitting the 23-year-old titleholder against the 37-year-old veteran.
Alvarez came to ONE Championship for a specific reason, and that is to win the lightweight title which would make him the only man to win world titles in the UFC, Bellator, and ONE.
However, Alvarez has had a rough go in his ONE stint so far, having only won one fight in the promotion in the last two years. That hasn’t stopped him from calling out Lee, making his intent known on social media and in various interviews that he’s looking to book a showdown with the young star.
“Eddie has been talking a lot on social media. I don’t take any of it personal. I know that Eddie really wants to get a title shot, and he’s getting older. He’s on a losing streak in ONE Championship, so he has no other choice but to get on social media and to do a callout, hoping that I make that emotional decision and accept the fight,” Lee said in a recent video interview with ONE Championship.
“The thing is, even if I did accept the fight, there’s a low chance the company would make that happen because he’s basically 1-3 in the promotion. They turned the fight with Iuri Lapicus to a No Contest, so that would make him 1-2. In no organization are you going to see a fighter with one win and two losses get a title shot.”
Lee captured the lightweight world title with a scintillating technical knockout victory over Shinya Aoki in May of 2019. He’s defended the belt successfully on three occasions since, beating top contenders Saygid Guseyn Arslanaliev, Iuri Lapicus, and Timofey Nastyukhin.
With the exception of new entrant Ok Rae Yoon, Lee has essentially cleared the top five in his division. Alvarez, on the other hand, remains unranked.
Despite this, Lee says he’s still willing to face Alvarez in the Circle, if the promotion does decide to make the fight anyway, and reiterates that he’s never turned down a fight in ONE Championship.
“I don’t have any bad blood with him (Alvarez). But I do think he’s got one shot left. I do think that he’s at a point in his career where he’s going to give it his all for one last run to the top. But once he faces me in the cage, I know I’m going to come out on top. I know I’m going to win,” said Lee.
“So that could be his last fight. That’s not up to me to decide. I’m just doing my thing. I’ll fight whoever ONE Championship gives me. If that happens to be Eddie, when he makes his way there, I’ll be more than happy to accept that fight. In no way am I running from him.”
