Las Vegas — Mackenzie Dern earned her revenge over Amanda Ribas, and second straight win, in the main event of UFC Vegas 101 on Saturday.
Yet despite a third-round arm-bar submission for the sixth-ranked strawweight, she’s taking herself out of title contention for a while. Instead, Dern wants at least one more fight before competing for a UFC championship.
In way of explanation, Dern (15-5), one of the most notable representatives of jiu-jitsu in MMA, said following the fight that “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. It’s a lot of play messing in you head, it can take your journey, maybe make it a little bit longer. But I think in the end it really helps you evolve to be the best fighter possible, if you can look back and have constructive criticism on yourself.”
“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.”
Rather than fight the champ, Dern wants to fight someone ranked higher than her at strawweight. The problem with Mackenzie Dern not gunning for the belt just yet, but wanting to fight up the division, is that she’s already fought all those above her.
Amanda Lemos. Jessica Andrade. Virna Jandiroba. Yan Xiaonan. The only fighter ranked above Dern that she has yet to face is Tatiana Suarez. Suarez, however, is set to face champ Weili Zhang next month.
That leaves the other four names. “My next fight’s going to be like ‘Dern 2,’ going to be all these rematches,” noted Dern, who doesn’t appear to have a preference. “Any of the girls. I think I’m going to train the best I can no matter who comes. Maybe Virna again. I know Tatiana came out [of a planned fight with Jandiroba], and then they kind of threw out that maybe I would step in, but I don’t think that fight was really good for her at that time. But now that Tatiana is going for the belt, maybe that’s something that she would want to do.”
Watch the full UFC Vegas 101 post-fight press conference appearance by Mackenzie Dern above.
