Mackenzie Dern isn’t just a UFC champion, she’s now officially defended that title as well.
Saturday’s UFC 330 co-main event saw Dern earn a one-sided decision win over Gillian Robertson to successfully defend the strawweight belt she won in a vacant title fight by defeating Virna Jandiroba at UFC 321 this past October. That title was vacated by Zhang Weili, who dominated the 115-pound division before moving up a weight class in a failed bid to dethrone flyweight queen Valentina Shevchenko.
At the moment, it’s unclear whether Zhang is planning to return at 115 or 125 pounds, if at all. So does Dern feel like that matchup has to happen for her to be considered the strawweight division’s true champion?
“No,” Dern said at the evening’s post-fight press conference. “I felt like the champion before when I won the belt, but I just think I solidified myself even more as the champ for the fans, that they would say that, but I don’t think I need to win Weili to be a champ. I mean, people retire, I’m not saying that that’s what she’s going to do but the more defenses I can get at this, whoever comes next, I think I proved that I was the champ.
“Gillian was on a five-fight win streak, Virna was on a five-fight win streak, I just became a four-fight win streak. I don’t know how much more I need to do to prove that.”
Whenever Dern is booked to defend her title again, Zhang is the most obvious candidate to challenge her. However, other contenders have made strong cases, including Tatiana Suarez, Alexia Thainara, and blue-chip prospect Fatima Kline.
Dern isn’t sure who she’ll fight next, but she knows when she wants to come back.
“I don’t hope for anybody. Whoever the UFC gives to me, I’ll be ready,” Dern said, later adding, “Ideally I would like to fight probably March, so maybe in six months if I can get maybe two fights a year, that would be good.”
The only caveat Dern would put on an otherwise successful evening is that she wasn’t able to put Robertson away inside the distance. Dern threatened with a couple of tight chokes and even worked for a leg lock at one point, but Robertson managed to make it to the final buzzer.
Ultimately, Dern is satisfied at having done enough to officially log a UFC title defense and is eager to continue her evolution.
“Honestly, it feels good, but it could feel even better if I would have got the submission,” Dern said. “I’m somewhat that’s always looking for the best performance possible, so I’m happy with my wrestling, I’m happy with I guess the dominance of the fight, but I wanted to submit Gillian, for sure. I still see lots of things that I want to get better just to be able to defend it more and more times, but definitely feel like I solidified myself as the champ.”