Just 18 years old, Adrian Lee enters the ONE Championship cage for the second time this weekend at ONE 168, where he will meet promotional newcomer Nico Cornejo.
Cornejo and Lee have quite a bit in common: both are early on in their pro careers (to be fair, Cornejo had a solid amateur run dating back to 2019). Both are undefeated. And then there’s the age factor: Adrian Lee is still just a teenager. As for Cornejo, he’s perfectly familiar with those teenage years: his son is just two years younger than Adrian Lee, at 16.
Okay, so maybe not that much in common. Still, that’s one of those weird quirks of the fight business, as the 35-year old enters the highest-profile bout of his career.
“We joked around a lot in our gym, because believe it or not, I have a sixteen year old son,” Cornejo (2-0) told media outlets including Cageside Press in a pre-fight scrum on Wednesday. “So him being two years older than my son, we joke around a lot and my son is like, ‘dad I think I can take you.'” To which the elder Cornejo’s answer was “‘You can try, but we’ll see.'”
All joking aside, Nico Cornejo isn’t reading too much into the tender age of Lee, who comes from what amounts to ONE Championship royalty in a fighting family with Christian, Angela, and the late Victoria Lee.
“His age has nothing to do with it. He’s got years and years of experience in his background, fighting I’m pretty sure from the moment he could walk. His age, I don’t take into consideration at all, and I don’t want people to take my age into consideration,” stated Cornejo. “I just turned 35 and a lot of you know that in the fight world, that’s getting up there in age. But I feel like I’m in my prime, I feel like I’ve still got many many years ahead of me, and I’m in the best shape of my life compared to my 20s. So I’m just ready to show the world what I can do here in Colorado.”
If all goes well, Cornejo hopes to turn a solid performance into a continuing engagement.
“I don’t want this to be one and done at all. I want to be able to show ONE Championship and executives and everybody that I’m here to compete, I’m here to fight, and continue my fight journey.”
Watch the full media scrum with ONE 168’s Nico Cornejo above.
