{"id":620397,"date":"2026-04-22T05:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/620397\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T05:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:24:16","slug":"christian-lee-is-the-only-fighter-who-can-test-islam-makhachev-per-ex-one-stalwart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/620397\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Lee is the only fighter who can test Islam Makhachev, per ex-ONE stalwart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Christian Lee would be the best-equipped combatant out there to best Islam Makhachev in a mixed martial arts contest, according to a Canadian champion who previously earned statement wins in ONE Championship. The referenced fighter is James Nakashima, who is currently the Unified MMA lightweight champ after recently winning gold on Canada\u2019s premier regional show.<\/p>\n<p>Nakashima has also been training with standout ONE fighters like Christian Lee and Adrian Lee in recent times. When mentioning his time working with ONE Championship royalty and what he has gleaned honing skills with such high-level mixed martial artists, Nakashima said [via<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/loma-lookboonmee\/ufc-perths-loma-lookboonmee-on-the-real-battle-that-awaits-her-in-australia\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Bowks Talking Bouts<\/a>],<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, the dad Ken [Lee] connected me with Christian like two years ago and they have flown me out there a couple times to; I live in Austin, Texas, but they have flown me out there a couple times to help Christian with his camps. Even Adrian just fought like a couple weeks ago and they were trying to get me out there to help him. So yeah, I have a really strong connection with the family. Like I\u2019ve spent two months out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery time I go out there; I\u2019ve spent about a month out there in Hawaii but it seems like I\u2019ve known them guys for forever. It\u2019s just a really high level family, really high level gym.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Christian Lee could hang with Islam Makhachev, Adrian Lee touted as \u201cabsolute monster\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As he further discussed the rarefied air that the multi-division ONE Championship titleholder is in while also shouting out Christian\u2019s surging prospect brother Adrian Lee, James Nakashima continued [via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/gable-steveson\/no-doubts-gable-steveson-can-become-a-world-champion-in-mma-per-pfl-chicago-victor-and-former-teammate\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bowks Talking Bouts<\/a>],<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChristian [Lee] is the best MMA fighter I\u2019ve ever trained with. I think if anybody could mess with Islam [Makhachev], I think Christian could hang with him. Yeah, I\u2019ve learned a tremendous amount training with [him], getting to know the dad. Me and Christian have developed a relationship. Me and Adrian, I love that kid. He\u2019s an animal, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s 19 years old. He\u2019s going to be; that Adrian Lee versus <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=baRtczLno_s\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tye Ruotolo<\/a> fight. I think that was the greatest pro debut in the history of MMA that Tye displayed. Because Adrian Lee is an absolute monster and Tye Ruotolo is the truth. He\u2019s the absolute truth. That was a great fight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christian Lee would be the best-equipped combatant out there to best Islam Makhachev in a mixed martial arts&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[55549,49,48,111534,641,23591,232933,638,1865,82,640],"class_list":{"0":"post-620397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-adrian-lee","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-christian-lee","12":"tag-fighting","13":"tag-islam-makhachev","14":"tag-james-nakashima","15":"tag-mma","16":"tag-one-championship","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620397","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=620397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}