Kevin Lee hasn’t missed a beat.
In his first MMA combat in 14 months, Lee (19-8) wanted lower than two minutes to submit welterweight veteran Thiago Oliveira at Lights Out Championship 17. The bout befell at Hype Athletics in Wayne, Mich., Lee’s house state.
Lee, a one-time interim UFC light-weight title challenger, locked in a good rear-naked choke that had Oliveira tapping on the 1:58 mark of the primary spherical.
Watch the end under.
Previous to Saturday’s in-cage look, Lee’s most up-to-date MMA look was a first-round submission loss to Rinat Fakhretdinov at a July 2023 UFC occasion, and his most up-to-date win was a unanimous determination over Diego Sanchez at an Eagle FC present in March 2022.
“The Motown Phenom” advised MMA Combating’s Mike Heck he would nonetheless prefer to return to the 155-pound division, the place he was previously a top-10 fighter within the UFC. His long-term objective is to guide a matchup with UFC champion Islam Makhachev.
“I need to combat for a world title,” Lee stated in an interview with MMA Combating forward of the Oliveira combat. “I simply need to combat the very best guys. Am I hung up on the organizations? Probably not. I need to combat the very best guys and the blokes that actually will give me a problem, who folks really feel are unbeatable.
“I believe it’s a disgrace I by no means received to combat Khabib Nurmagomedov. It’s a disgrace if I don’t ever get to combat Islam in his profession. I believe I pose threats for these guys that not a variety of different lightweights do, and I believe lots of people would, would agree with that. So it’d be form of a disgrace in the event that they go their complete careers and never combat a wrestler like me.”
Lee, 32, isn’t losing anytime getting again into the groove of competitors as he’s already set to combat Saul Almeida at a Gamebred Bareknuckle MMA occasion on Nov. 15 in Biloxi, Miss.
