{"id":19248,"date":"2025-07-24T00:28:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T00:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/19248\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T00:28:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T00:28:11","slug":"big-game-hunter-lee-sizing-up-opponents-in-transition-from-wrestling-to-mma-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/19248\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Big Game\u2019 Hunter Lee sizing up opponents in transition from wrestling to MMA career"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a sport where weight class matters so much, 25-year old MMA<\/a> fighter Hunter Lee<\/a> isn\u2019t fazed by opponents 10, 20 or even 30 pounds heavier than he is.<\/p>\n

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That was just the case in late May at Unified 62 in Toronto, as the 185-pound Lee jumped up to the 205-pound division and knocked out opponent Cal Kostiniuk.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went and had some all-you-can-eat ribs the night before so that I could be close to his weight,\u201d said Lee. \u201cHe\u2019s a big guy, like six-foot-four and I\u2019m five-foot-11, so a big height difference. It doesn\u2019t make a difference to me, they\u2019ve been calling me the \u2018Big Game Hunter\u2019 since then because I\u2019m willing to fight anyone, anytime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspired by MMA fighters such as Chuck Liddell and Canadian great Georges St-Pierre, Lee has become one of the country\u2019s rising stars in the sport.<\/p>\n

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Since winning at Unified 62, Lee is coming off a victory by unanimous decision over Chris Choo at a Cage Fury Fighting Championships event in Florida to improve his professional record to an undefeated 4-0.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s something that doesn\u2019t surprise Jesse Boldt, a muay thai instructor at Modern Martial Arts Center in Saskatoon where Lee trains.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe know what it\u2019s like to go with Hunter in the gym,\u201d said Boldt. \u201cSo we know his poor opponents, how they\u2019re going to feel going against him. When he wins the way he does, it\u2019s expected because we feel it in the gym.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee\u2019s strength comes from a dominant ground game developed over his collegiate career with the University of Saskatchewan Huskies wrestling team between 2017 and 2022, where he\u2019d become a national champion with the program and become an alternate for the Canadian Olympic team.<\/p>\n

First discovered by coach Daniel Olver with the Huskies\u2019 junior program, Lee\u2019s progression into the MMA world doesn\u2019t surprise the University of Saskatchewan coach one bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was always something that Hunter wanted to get into,\u201d said Olver. \u201cWe knew that when he was part of the Junior Huskies program and then into the [University of Saskatchewan] Huskies program, this was his end goal here.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn terms of seeing that success when he was a Huskie now being able to transfer into MMA, we always talk about how excellence is a transferrable skill. He was excellent as a Huskie, he was dedicated to winning and he\u2019s transferring that right into MMA.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m not surprised that he\u2019s having the success that he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Lee, the wrestling background has allowed him to control fights on the ground more effectively while also having a framework to cut weight once he begins fighting more opponents within his planned weight class of 170 to 175 pounds.<\/p>\n

Calling himself the \u2018most ducked professional MMA fighter,\u2019 he said it\u2019s been a struggle to find opponents who want to go up against his wrestling background.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith wrestling you just compete against whoever shows up,\u201d said Lee. \u201cYou go to the national tournament and you just sign up, whoever is in your bracket you got to go against them and you can\u2019t say no. In MMA, guys can say no and then they\u2019ll get a different opponent that\u2019s easier.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a lot of problems with that earlier in my career. It\u2019s because my grappling level from my wrestling career is so much higher than what they\u2019re used to seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of that transition to MMA life full-time has been gaining confidence on the microphone after matches, a trait which Lee believes helps market the sport and gain interest in young fighters such as himself.<\/p>\n

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That came to life following his Unified 62 victory, as he called out a list of potential opponents just minutes after winning his match.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to put on an interview that people want to see,\u201d said Lee. \u201cFor my first two fights they didn\u2019t let me do an in-cage interview because of the time limit and I was earlier on the card. I was like, \u2018As soon as they give me the mic, I\u2019m going to make it worthwhile so that they want to give me the mic in the future.\u2019 I feel like I did that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoping to one day advance through the levels of MMA and reach the vaunted UFC, they\u2019re dreams that were born in his hometown of Flin Flon, Man., and grown in his adopted home of Saskatoon over the past seven years.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re communities that Lee said he fights for every time he steps into the octagon.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI walk out to The Last Saskatchewan Pirate so I always got those roots,\u201d said Lee. \u201cEven though technically Flin Flon is a border town, so I feel like I represent Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The Last Saskatchewan Pirate is my walk-out song, I always carry that sort of representation even into the UFC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watching the impact Lee has had on other fighters at their gym, Boldt added there\u2019s a sense of magic around his story and the paths toward professional fighting that others in the province can take.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s really cool because it gives the belief in other people from some small town in the middle of nowhere that they can do big things as well,\u201d said Boldt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn small communities, it gives them hope where you don\u2019t have to be from Vancouver, Montreal or even Saskatoon. You can be from a small town and do great things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee will look to keep his undefeated record intact later this year, as he\u2019s looking to fight at a Unified MMA event in Edmonton in October.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a sport where weight class matters so much, 25-year old MMA fighter Hunter Lee isn\u2019t fazed by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,16372,638,16373,82,16374],"class_list":["post-19248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-hunter-lee","tag-mma","tag-saskatoon-sports","tag-sports","tag-u-sask-huskies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}