Hip-hop singer Lee Jung-hyun (21) competes with a championship candidate in the second season of Road to UFC, where he participates as a mixed martial arts fighter.
UFC, the world’s No. 1 organization, launched Road to UFC in 2022, an Asian mixed martial arts prospect contest that qualifies winners of tournaments by weight category.
The 2023 Road to UFC kicks off on May 27 at the China Performance Institute Shanghai. Lee Jung-hyun will face Filipino-American Mark Climaco (26) in the flyweight division (-57kg) quarterfinal.
From the first match, the two fighters, who are considered the top 2 in the Road to UFC flyweight division by foreign martial arts media, will collide from the first match, with Lee Jung-hyun predicted by Cageside Press in the US and Climaco by Artem Analysis in New Zealand.스포츠토토
Lee Jung-hyun has 16 wins and 2 losses in mixed martial arts since 2018, including 8 wins and 2 losses in amateurs. As a professional athlete, he has never lost, including winning one in kickboxing.
In the 2021 Mnet hip-hop audition ‘High School Rapper’ season 4, he announced his presence as a ‘rapping fighter’. After passing the attendance check rap search, grade level cipher, and group evaluation, he participated in a one-on-one theme battle with 24 people, but was eliminated and did not make it into the 16 people.
Climaco was the former USA Hard Steel flyweight champion. ▲UFC ▲Professional Fighters League (above) ▲ONE Championship (Singapore) ▲Rizin (Japan) and Bellator (USA), which are grouped into the five major mixed martial arts organizations, are also noteworthy.
The mixed martial arts ranking system ‘Fight Matrix’ evaluates Klimako at the 37th place in the UFC flyweight division and Jung-Hyun Lee at the 42nd place. The confrontation between the two is comparable to a big match in the 2023 Road to UFC quarterfinals.
After his professional debut, Lee Jung-hyun is drawing attention with his destructive power, which is rare in the lightweight division, winning 4 wins in mixed martial arts and 1 win in kickboxing by KO.
It is a variable that 18 mixed martial arts amateur and professional matches were played only in Korea’s ‘Road FC’. Attention is focusing on whether he will be able to overcome his lack of experience in international competitions and win the top spot in the Road to UFC flyweight division this season.