Mackenzie Dern Adopting Patient Approach to Reaching UFC Championship Goal
While Mackenzie Dern entered the Ultimate Fighting Championship with a fair amount of hype behind her, it has taken some time for her to develop into more of a complete mixed martial artist.
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“I feel like the striking and everything is setting up more of my jiu-jitsu. I feel like when I get a submission, it’s not because I was focusing on being a striker. But I think it means my striking and my takedowns are getting better. It’s giving me more opportunities to still get the fight to the ground,” Dern said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference.
“I’m always trying to get the fight to the ground. Every fight, I’m
trying to get the fight to the ground. I think it just kind of
shows more that the other areas are getting better when I get the
submission.”
Dern began her promotional tenure with victories in six of her first seven Octagon appearances. However, she fell on hard times beginning in 2021, losing four of her next six outings as the level of opposition became more difficult. After back-to-back triumphs over Ribas and Lupita Godinez, Dern remains an intriguing contender at strawweight, but she plans on remaining patient on the road to her primary objective of becoming a UFC champion.
“I think I’m very hard on myself ,and I always try to get better. Even when I have a great performance, I think I did so many things wrong. So I think it’s a lot of play messing in your head, so it can take your journey and maybe makes it a little longer. But I think in the end it really helps you want to be the best fighter possible if you can really look back and have constructive criticism on yourself,” Dern said.
“My idea isn’t to go fight for the belt and then lose it fast. My idea is to get the belt, and I want to be a dominant champion, so I’m not in a rush to get there. I want to have good fights, and I want to make a statement.”
Reigning strawweight queen Weili Zhang is currently slated to defend her belt against Tatiana Suarez in the co-main event of UFC 312. Dern is aware that she could be one of the names on call if something to go awry with either fighter in that bout — but she won’t rush into anything if the situation isn’t right.
“I think definitely my name could be thrown in there if something happens,” Dern said. “They’ve called me on short notice before, like with Amanda Lemos, her fight before me was just for the title. So I think definitely I could be thrown in there.
“If we would accept it or not, I don’t know. That’s something me and the team would have to go through. I definitely don’t want to accept something if we’re not ready and just have a bad performance, but I think my name’s definitely close there now.”
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