Unbeaten top MMA prospect Mackenzie Dern admits in a recent video interview that she feels she’s ready to step into the UFC Octagon.
Dern is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu artist who has practiced the art since the age of 3. The 24-year-old has won gold medals at the 2015 and 2016 World Professional Jiu-Jitsu Cup (with golds in both the -55kg weight class and absolute in the former year), as well as gold medals in the -59kg weight class at the 2015 and 2016 Pan-American Championships and World Championships. In addition, Dern won a gold medal at the 2015 ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship.
Dern made her professional MMA debut back in July 2016 in Legacy FC (now Legacy Fighting Alliance), and she has won all five of her career bouts thus far — three coming by submission. Dern debuted as a strawweight, but she missed weight in her second and third bouts before moving up to flyweight for her fourth bout.
Two weeks ago, Dern returned to strawweight successfully and defeated Kaline Medeiros at Invicta FC 26.
In the interview, in addition to talking about the UFC, Dern talks about making weight, her improvements over the last year as a fighter, balancing MMA and jiu-jitsu.
You can watch the interview in the video player above.