In the second season of Road to UFC, in which hip-hop singer Lee Jung-hyun (21) participates as a mixed martial arts fighter, his skills are recognized as much as the buzz.
In the 2023 Road to UFC preview,메이저놀이터 the Philippine daily newspaper ‘Sunstar’ paid attention, saying, “Lee Jung-hyun dominates the Asian mixed martial arts flyweight class (-57kg).”
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 fight Filipino-American Mark Climaco (26) in the flyweight quarterfinals.
‘Sunstar’ said, “Lee Jung-hyun played an active part in the Korean tournament Road FC and completely dominated his weight class. As a professional fighter, he has never tasted defeat,” he introduced to the Philippines.
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 player, he has never lost, including one win in kickboxing.
In the 2021 Mnet hip-hop audition ‘High School Rapper’ season 4, he announced his presence as a ‘rapping fighter’. He passed the attendance check rap search competition, grade level cipher, and group evaluation to participate in a one-on-one subject battle with 24 players, but was eliminated and did not make it into the 16 players.
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.
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.
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.