The competitive side of Mackenzie Dern hopes to one day share the octagon with Zhang Weili, but if it happened now, she believes it wouldn’t be the right time, even if Zhang didn’t make the move up to flyweight.
Now Dern steps into her first UFC title fight this Saturday as she faces Virna Jandiroba in the co-main event of UFC 321 with the vacant strawweight championship on the line. Zhang vacated the belt to challenge Valentina Shevchenko for the flyweight title in the co-main event of next month’s UFC 322 event.
Dern respects everything Zhang has accomplished at 115 pounds, and that’s why the timing wouldn’t have been right to face the multi-time divisional champ at this point in her career.
“I definitely think that if Weili was champion right now of our division, and I mean, obviously, I wouldn’t say no to a title shot, but I don’t think I’d be ready to fight Weili right now at this moment of my career, you know what I mean?,” Dern told MMA Fighting. “But I do think that if I do win the belt, and then whatever — if we were to fight like at the White House or something in June — I feel like I’d be way more ready and prepared to fight her.
“I know it’s like, OK, it’s just like what? Like six months or eight months difference. How much better do you think you’re going to get in 8 months? But I think just winning the bell, there’s a confidence part that you get from that, and it’s just more training and more time. She was just so dominant in the strawweight division.”
Dern gets her shot at UFC gold in her 16th octagon appearance, and does so against the division’s top contender — one that Dern has already defeated. In their first meeting at UFC 256 in December 2020, Dern picked up a unanimous decision win over Jandiroba.
The 32-year-old would love the chance to face Zhang down the road, but if she doesn’t, Dern sees the strawweight division opening up with fresh faces and new contenders.
“I really just feel like this is going get all of us a little bit more uplifted,” Dern explained. “Like, we kind of get re-energized, a little bit more confidence in the whole division, kind of see different matchups and all of us just maturing differently as fighters, and I feel like either me or Virna, we would be more prepared to fight her if she does decide to come back down right away, you know what I mean? So I’m not really thinking too much like, ‘Oh, that’ll be sad [if we never fight].‘
“She’s accomplished so much, so if she does retire, or if she does decide to stay at 125, I wouldn’t think too much about it. I mean, it’s the fight world. She’s been in this for like how long? So it’s not like, ‘Oh, I’m only a champion if I beat her, but I would like to have the opportunity to fight her.
“I’m not going to say that I wouldn’t be like, ‘Man, it would be very exciting to fight her,‘ but, yeah, the main goal is to beat Virna, win the belt, and then we’ll see if she comes back down or not. I think if she does come back down, me or Virna will be ready to fight her. And if not, it’ll be sad, but the strawweight division is growing so much, there’s so many tough girls coming up that people aren’t going to be bummed.”
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