One Championship boss Chatri Sityodtong says Christian Lee's title defense will be 'one crazy war'

• Christian Lee's April 14 title defense against Timofey Nastyukhin will provide fireworks.
• That's the opinion of One Championship boss Chatri Sityodtong, the fight promoter.
• Sityodtong tips Lee to become the No.1 fighter in the world someday.

One Championship boss Chatri Sityodtong said his 22-year-old MMA phenom Christian Lee's upcoming 170-pound title defense on April 14 will be "a crazy war."

Lee, the One champion at lightweight, fights Timofey Nastyukhin at the Singapore Indoor Stadium Wednesday at an event broadcast on US cable network TNT.

The bout will be Lee's third defense of the championship belt he won after winning a second-round knockout over the Japanese grappling legend Shinya Aoki in 2019.

Nastyukhin, meanwhile, is looking to extend a two-fight winning run after knocking out Eddie Alvarez in 2019 and out-pointing Pieter Buist last year.

Speaking to Insider before the event, Sityodtong suggested that the main event fight will steal the show on Wednesday.

"It's going to be a crazy war because Nastyukhin knocked out Alvarez, and said he's going to knock out Christian Lee as well.

"Let's see what happens because there'll be two super-hungry lions in there, and it's going to be incredible to watch."

Should Lee retain his title then a big One Championship bout involving Alvarez could be on the horizon, providing the star American fighter keeps on winning.

Alvarez told Insider recently that he is hellbent on trouncing Sityodtong's lightweights until he comes face-to-face with whoever is holding the title at the time.

Sityodtong told Insider he knows both fighters want to scrap. "I know Christian Lee wants to fight Eddie Alvarez and I know Eddie Alvarez wants to fight Christian Lee," he said.

"It would be the young lion against the veteran. I still think Eddie has a few years of good, high-performance left in him.

"He still feels his best years are ahead of him and reaching his prime right now. It's very exciting times."

As for Lee, Sityodtong told Insider last year that he thinks so highly of his young champion that he'd be confident he could beat anyone in the 155-pound to 170-pound divisions, including the now-retired Khabib Nurmagomedov.

Since then, Lee has knocked out another opponent - Iuri Lapicus.

So does Sityodtong think even more highly of Lee now? Does he expect Lee to become a future No.1 in the sport?

"Yes, yes, yes," he said.

"I believe Christian Lee is already one of the pound-for-pound best. He's definitely the best lightweight world champion out there right now, definitely. He can smoke any lightweight in the world."