It’s no secret that the goal for ONE women’s atomweight top contender Denice “The Menace” Zamboanga is to hoist the World Title away from longtime division queen “Unstoppable” Angela Lee.
But as her older brother and coach, Drex “T-Rex” Zamboanga, makes his ONE Championship debut against Detchadin “Detchpool” Sornsirisuphathin this Friday, 28 August, at ONE: A NEW BREED, “The Menace” aims even higher.
Denice, who battles Watsapinya “Dream Girl” Kaewkhong on the same card, plans to follow in the footsteps of the famed Lee siblings, who hold World Titles in The Home Of Martial Arts.
Angela’s younger brother, Christian “The Warrior” Lee, is the reigning ONE Lightweight World Champion.
“Hopefully, when we turn out successful, we’ll get to that point. Of course, I would want nothing more than for us to be both World Champions,” the younger Zamboanga said.
“I told him that since we’re here in the first place, we both have to be champions.”
Knowing how good her brother can be, Denice has been pushing him to make the jump to The Home Of Martial Arts for a while.
“I always tell him, ‘You have to join us here, you have to come up and compete in a big organization like ONE Championship,’” she said.
“I want nothing more than to have him with me as I rise up in the world of MMA. I don’t want him to be left behind. I encouraged him that he can compete here, that he can be a World Champion here.”
As for Drex, he’s grateful that Denice holds him accountable and pushes him to reach for his goals because it wasn’t long ago when it was him doing the pushing.
“I’m happy that she has high expectations of me. As her older brother and coach, I also have a responsibility to live up to that,” he said.
“It’s an amazing feeling that we’re both here now and she’s now the one pushing me, because at first, I was really the one pushing her when we were amateurs.”
Like his sister, he is dreaming big and shooting for the stars as he moves to the largest martial arts organization in the world.
“I’m really excited. Although I’ve been competing for a long time, competing on this stage is really different,” he said.
“As a champion in the Philippines, they expect me to represent well, and that’s my goal. That’s the end goal, that in the future, we’ll become both World Champs like the Lees.”
Catch ONE: A NEW BREED this Friday, at 8:30 P.M. on One Sports and One Sports+ or by watching it thru the ONE Super App.