The huntress has officially become the hunted.
For more than 10 years, Mackenzie Dern’s goal wasn’t just to be a UFC fighter. It was to replicate her decorated Brazilian jiu-jitsu career and become the best.
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And now that she reigns atop the premier MMA organization’s strawweight division, Dern finally has her title belt, along with a target on her back and a heap of motivation.
“Knowing that everyone’s just focused on me, and the coaches are seeing all the little details, we gotta every fight bring something new, you know?” Dern said. “It’s like, ‘Oh shoot, we gotta worry about this now. We have to worry about this.’ So definitely it pushes you to train harder.”
The Huntington Beach 115-pound champion puts it all on the line Saturday in her first title defense, squaring off against Gillian Robertson in the UFC 330 co-main event in Philadelphia.
It is a tantalizing bout for grappling fans. Dern’s ground game is unparalleled, evidenced by her numerous gold medals in international jiu-jitsu and submission grappling competitions before focusing on an MMA career in 2016. Robertson (17-8), meanwhile, has become one of the top ground fighters in women’s MMA, using takedowns and chain wrestling to submit and pound her way to victories.
Most notable is how much Dern (16-5), for someone who never fought throwing punches for most of her life, has improved her striking under the tutelage of Jason Parrilo since her first UFC fight in 2018.
So the often smiling Dern, a 33-year-old mother of a 7-year-old daughter, is more than happy with wherever the fight goes.
“I think me and her, we’re going to go to the ground for sure. I don’t imagine her wanting to strike. You know, I barely see her strike in any of her fights,” Dern said in a recent exclusive interview. “So I definitely think that she’ll go to the ground, and I’m happy to go to the ground too because I hate having to find people, you know? So when we have that clash, I think we’ll go to the ground for sure.”
Like Dern, Robertson has toiled to reach the summit. The 31-year-old Canadian, who trains in Doral, Florida, had her first UFC fight nearly nine years ago and went 7-6 in the 125-pound flyweight division. But upon dropping down to strawweight in 2023, she has won six of her past seven fights, with two submissions and two TKOs, to earn the title shot.
No woman in UFC history can match Robertson’s seven submission wins. And her next finish will be her 11th, which would also be a UFC women’s record.
“She came down from the 125 division, so she’s a little bit bigger and taller for the girls in our division,” said Dern, who won the vacant championship in October with a unanimous-decision victory over Virna Jandiroba at UFC 321. “So yeah, I definitely think she can try and be a bully. She definitely brings a lot of dangerous points.”
Dern has her own impressive résumé in the UFC. Her five submissions are the most in strawweight history and she has the second-most finishes at 115 pounds.
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But her two favorite stats are her 11 victories and seven fight bonuses – three performance of the night awards and three fight of the night awards – which both place her second all-time in the division.
“I’m so into looking for the finish and being a fighting fighter, you know? That’s always been my style in jiu-jitsu,” she said.
With the title comes great responsibility as well as heightened notoriety. Dern is no stranger at Anaheim Ducks games. In June, she threw out the first pitch before a San Diego Padres game. And in January, she and fellow Southern California UFC fighter Brian Ortega were presenters at the Golden Globes, part of a promotion for the UFC’s $7.7 billion media rights deal with Paramount.
Dern has also gone from competing on the Octagon mat to the felt table of the Celebrity Poker Tour, which she has parlayed into helping her MMA career.
“It’s really just helped control my emotions, honestly,” she said. “Like after all these years fighting and competing and training, and my coach is trying to get me to control my emotions. Like you get punched and then you don’t like go red and alert. You know, poker is really what just made me have to do that.”
With her mental game on point, Dern is also going to rely on her cardio Saturday. Between her title fight and headlining four events, Dern has trained for 25-minute fights on five occasions, with four going the distance. Robertson has never trained for or competed in a five-round fight.
Dern knows Saturday will be a tough scrap, but also believes she checks a lot of boxes against Robertson. If it goes to the ground, Dern is more than comfortable on her back. She’s not sure the same can be said for Robertson.
“We’re definitely excited to work everywhere, but to put her on her back would be amazing,” Dern said. “I would like to submit her. I’m not looking to do it in the first three rounds. I would like to beat her on the feet, get good momentum, take her down. I’ve never seen her do five rounds, you know? So just kind of get her tired and get heavy, and then fourth and fifth look for the submission.”
UFC 331
Main event: Welterweight champion Islam Makhachev (28-1) vs. Ian Machado Garry (17-1)
Co-main event: Strawweight champion Mackenzie Dern (16-5) vs. Gillian Robertson (17-8)
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When: Saturday
Where: Xfinity Mobile Arena, Philadelphia
How to watch: Paramount+ (prelims 2 p.m PT.; main card 6 p.m. PT)