UFC women’s strawweight Mackenzie Dern is gearing up for her sophomore octagon performance. Now the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu phenom has come forward to give her thoughts on her upcoming opponent.
Dern kept her undefeated streak alive in her octagon debut, ultimately earning a split decision victory over Ashley Yoder. Now 6-0 in her mixed martial arts career, Dern is set to face off against Amanda Cooper at UFC 224.
Speaking to MMA Fighting, Dern offered her thoughts on Cooper’s recent trash-talk.
“She doesn’t think I’m good at all, basically. It’s OK. I think that Ashley was a harder opponent than her. Ashley is like southpaw, tall. Most of Ashley’s losses by decision, never lost by submission. All of Amanda’s losses are by submission. So, I think the fight with Amanda is gonna be a good matchup with me. I think it’s gonna be way easier than against Ashley, who is taller and everything.”
“I think most people are gonna be surprised by the punches. I know they think like I click the automatic and you just go a little crazy. For sure, I’m a jiu-jitsu girl, but I’m not scared to punch. For sure, this fight I want to submit — like fast. The last fight with Ashley, I wanted to like stay standing up. I wanted to get the submission, but I didn’t have a rush to finish fast. But for Amanda, I want to submit fast. I’ll be in Brazil, I’m a Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter, I want to like show jiu-jitsu. So, I’m going to finish as fast as possible this fight.”
“It’s the first person I’m fighting that’s kind of talking about me, so I’m surprised. If it was in Vegas, I think it would be different. But man, she’s fighting in Brazil and she’s like talking a lot. I think it’s gonna be worse for her. … You know the ‘uhh vai morrer,’ they’re gonna say it no matter what, but the more she talks, the worst.”
“It’s OK that she thinks that, but she’s been submitted. So I think her ground needs to get better first before she says [something] about my ground.”
UFC 224 goes down May 12 in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. The event will be featured live on pay-per-view.
