Mackenzie Dern enters her first title defense at UFC 330 against an opponent who could be more than willing to test her decorated ground game.
Long before becoming UFC strawweight champion, Dern put together an illustrious competitive Brazilian jiu-jitsu career, winning numerous championships across the globe including gold medals at ADCC and the World IBJJF Jiu-Jitsu Championship. Her grappling skills have translated well to her MMA career, with half of her wins coming by way of submission and many opponents struggling to deal with her on the ground.
However, on Saturday, Dern faces Gillian Robertson, who just so happens to own the record for most submissions (7) by any female fighter ever to compete in the UFC. Robertson did much of her damage at flyweight, but is 5-0 since dropping down to 115 pounds and has spoken confidently about testing Dern’s highly vaunted jiu-jitsu.
So what does Dern think of the potential grappling challenge?
“It’s five minutes,” Dern said at UFC 330 media day on Wednesday. “Each round is only five minutes. Five minutes isn’t a lot of time to work, especially when she’s good and she knows what she’s doing. I don’t know what belt she is, but if she’s a black belt—well, there’s other girls that are black belts, too, Virna [Jandiroba] and stuff like that—so she’s someone who’s aggressive and goes forward and she looks for the attack. I think she’s going to try to progress in the fight. She’s not going to just get a takedown and just stay safe. I think she’ll try to catch your back and she’s not someone who I want to fall in a bad position with. So if she knows how to stay safe and I know how to stay safe and we both know how to attack and we only have two minutes left because it took two-and-a-half minutes just to the ground because they’re still punching in the cage and all this, it’s an MMA fight, I don’t think people could see that much, especially when I’ve seen some of her submissions now with the UFC posting this week.
“Armbar, she attacks from the bottom, she attacks from the top. An armbar is an armbar, but you still have titles and you still have the accolades that the person brings to the fight and she hasn’t been submitted. She was armbarred, I know some of her fights in jiu-jitsu, she got leglocked. There are definitely weaknesses or holes there. I haven’t been submitted or things like that. So I don’t think in this fight you’ll see like, ‘Oh wow, I’m doing something totally crazy that she doesn’t do.’ But I just have some tricks up my sleeve.”
Dern is referring to Robertson’s competitive grappling career, where she has seen mixed results. Robertson scored an impressive submission of two-time UFC champion Rose Namajunas at a Fury Pro Grappling event in 2022, but has also been made to tap four times on the mats.
Should Saturday’s co-main event feature prolonged ground exchanges, Dern is excited about the prospect of showing off her specialty.
“For sure, levels to this, but it’s just I don’t know if she’s fought someone who doesn’t want to go to the ground with her, you know?” Dern said. “So we’re definitely going to be engaging, because I think there will be scrambles and there will be grappling exchanges and I’m super excited about that because this whole camp I trained so much my jiu-jitsu and it was just really comforting to be back kind of [like] if I was going to go fight at the world championship like I used to 15 years ago. I think it will be fun and it will be a good fight.”
In Dern’s championship win over Jandiroba at UFC 321, the 33-year-old mixed the martial arts to earn a unanimous decision over Virna Jandiroba, a fellow grappler. Dern is proud to show that she’s become a more well-rounded fighter, even if jiu-jitsu will always be in her heart.
“Definitely me winning was one of the biggest representations and kind of give back that I could do for my sport, my martial art, for jiu-jitsu, and my community,” Dern said. “It’s really good to be able to solidify myself as an MMA fighter because I feel like I won the fight, my title, mostly with my striking.
“Obviously, my jiu-jitsu is what makes people scared and that gives me such a good hand in the fight. People kind of back off in how they fight me and they fight differently, so that obviously is a big reason of what got me here, but just feeling comfortable with the striking and being able to adapt with whatever they throw at me. I became a champion in a completely different sport now, so I definitely represent jiu-jitsu, but I think that’s separated now and I’m a champion in MMA.”