Mackenzie Dern entered the Ultimate Fighting Championship with quite a bit of hype, but it took time for her to develop into a more complete mixed martial artist.
That evolution was on display in Saturday’s UFC Vegas 101 headliner, where Dern defeated Amanda Rivas with her legs and drew a tapout from her Brazilian opponent with an armbar at 4:56 of the third round. With this victory, Dern fulfilled his revenge. Dern believes he is growing in all aspects, but his ultimate goal remains the same.
“I feel like my striking and everything else is becoming more established with my jiu-jitsu. When I get submissions, I feel like it’s not because I’m focused as a striker. But it’s because my striking and takedowns are getting better. I think that gives us a better chance of staying in the game,” Dern said in Saturday’s postgame press conference.
“I’m always trying to get the fight serious. Every fight, I’m trying to finish the fight. I think when I get submissions, I see better in other areas that I’m getting better.” Masu.”
Dern began his promotional career winning six of his first seven Octagon appearances. However, she struggled in 2021, losing four of her next six matches as the level of her opponents became more difficult. After back-to-back wins over Rivas and Lupita Godinez, Dern remains an interesting contender at strawweight, but she plans to persevere toward her main goal of becoming UFC champion.
“I consider myself a very demanding person and always try to improve. Even if I performed well, I think I did a lot of things wrong. It’s confusing in my head. I think the journey can take a while and be a little long because there’s a lot of play, but in the end, if you can really look back and criticize yourself constructively, as much as possible. I think it really helps you want to be the best fighter you can be,” Dern said.
“My idea is to fight for the belt and not lose it right away. My idea is to win the belt and I want to be the dominant champion, so I don’t want to rush to get there. No. I want to have a good match and make a statement.”
Current strawweight queen Weili Zhang is currently scheduled to defend her belt against Tatiana Suarez in the co-main event of UFC 312. Dern recognizes that if something goes wrong with either fighter in that fight, she could be one of the players on the standby. But if the situation is not right, she will not rush into anything.
“I think if something were to happen, my name could definitely be thrown in there,” Dern said. “They’ve called me up on short notice before, like with Amanda Lemos, but her fight in front of me was just for the title, so it’s definitely there. I think there is a possibility that it will be thrown in.
“I don’t know if we’ll accept it. It’s something me and the team have to go through. I definitely don’t want to accept it if we just aren’t ready and perform poorly, but now my name I think we are definitely getting there.”
