Mackenzie Dern is quite literally the most significant person in the UFC strawweight division now that she’s the promotion’s 115-pound champion. That’s regardless of how MMA veteran-turned-analyst Din Thomas felt about her title fight ahead of UFC 321 this past Saturday in Abu Dhabi.
In order to pursue Valentina Shevchenko’s flyweight title in November, pound-for-pound great Zhang Weili vacated the strawweight title she held since November 2022. That opened the door for Dern and Virna Jandiroba to rematch and crown a new champion. The two first met in 2020, with Dern pulling off a unanimous decision win as each continued to work their way up the strawweight ladder. Five years later, the outcome remained the same at UFC 321 — just with a shiny new belt to go along with Dern’s victory.
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However, the aforementioned Thomas criticized the fight ahead of this past weekend, questioning if Dern vs. Jandiroba was the “most insignificant” UFC title fight in recent memory. Thomas cited a lack of fan interest as his justification for the comment, but it didn’t sit well with the new champion regardless.
“Jon Jones gave up his belt and Tom Aspinall became the champ. What do we in the division have to do? People can’t retire?” Dern said on “The Ariel Helwani Show” in her first interview since becoming champ.
“People just want to leave and go up a weight class and change things, so it’s like, if there’s a vacated belt, who else would fight for the belt? So I don’t understand what would be so insignificant about fighting a champion. Weili, if she wanted to, she’s accomplished everything — she didn’t even need to go up in weight. If she wanted to just retire, she could just retire and then what are they going to do?
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“They’re going to keep the division open. They gotta have a champion, so I don’t understand. How is any champion fight insignificant?”
Dern, 32, did her best to understand Thomas’ rationale. But unlike some previous instances of new champions being crowned with a vacant belt, there was a built-in storyline to Dern vs. Jandiroba 2. And the second fight arguably lived up to the first, if not surpassed it in entertainment value.
The new champion believes the work each did in their fights leading up to their sequel spoke for itself. So as she enjoys her spoils of battle, she also continues to scratch her head at what Thomas may have wanted out of the division’s latest championship bout.
“It’s just crazy for me to hear,” she said. “Unless he’s talking about stylistically-wise. But it’s like, Virna was on a five-fight win streak, submitting and taking down these girls. She’s like a strawweight mini-Khabib [Nurmagomedov] type girl. I don’t know who else he wanted to fight, so I don’t understand. As a commentator, I think he even helps with training, coaching and stuff. I thought it was a little bit — I didn’t understand it.”
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Luckily for Dern, all of the noise is just that — noise. Now that she’s reached the top of the strawweight mountain, she’s already eagerly anticipating a return to training. Aside from some hand swelling, the new champ said she emerged from UFC 321 relatively unscathed, leading her to think she can defend her title sooner rather than later.
So the new question becomes: Who’s first? A return to 115 pounds has been widely speculated for the aforementioned Zhang should she come up short at UFC 322. But when it comes to that Shevchenko fight and the possibility of Dern facing Zhang herself, the new champ isn’t rooting for a specific outcome.
The Mackenzie Dern era has officially begun with her UFC strawweight title win at UFC 321.
(Chris Unger via Getty Images)
“I’m not cheering for anyone to win or lose [in Shevchenko vs. Zhang], or anything like that,” Dern said. “On those terms, I’m taking advantage of the feeling right now, just soaking in all that confidence and to believe in myself. Organize my mind and see all the good things that we did in this camp, and just try to figure out as soon as I can start doing that again. Even without a fight scheduled. And just be prepared for whoever gets offered next, because I’m not going to be like a baby champion, you know what I mean?
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“Whatever they want us to do, we’ll be ready and we’ll train for that. I want to beat the best. I’m the best right now, but I want to beat whoever’s coming.”
Compelling options feel admittedly limited for Dern’s first title defense, but she’s open to facing whoever stands out the best at 115 pounds.
Get your wins, stand out and step up to the plate. Dern will be ready and waiting when the time comes.
“Probably someone with a win streak,” Dern said of her first challenger. “I think Weili, even if she was to lose to Valentina, has her win streak and being the former champion — that makes sense. Then Tatiana [Suarez] is coming off a win, so I think maybe if she had another fight. Two wins.
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“In the top five or six or seven, I think [Iasmin] Lucindo is fighting Gillian Robertson. I don’t know how many of them — how good their win streaks are. But yeah, I mean, two fights is even good enough to kind of come and fight for the belt. That’s how I fought for the belt with two wins.”
