The MMA world is already looking to crown the 24-year-old Mackenzie Dern as “the next Ronda Rousey,” warts and all. Dern is as slick as they come on the mat, winning the gold medal at the ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship in 2015 before transitioning to MMA full-time, now she’s undefeated at 4-0, is marketable (traditionally good looking), and needs to work on her stand up game. It’s a recipe for success if there ever was one.
The hype continued last night with her dominating win over Mandy Polk, and her highlight reel is getting long. It’s only a matter of time until she’s in the UFC (or Bellator), fighting Paige VanZant or hopefully, Joanna Champion or Rose Namajunas.
Bellator star and former UFC champion Benson Henderson had this to say about Dern last year:
“Go look her up, she is a multiple-time jiu-jitsu world champion. She’s won ADCC. She’s won Abu Dhabi. She’s won Worlds. She’s the current No. 1 ranked female jiu-jitsu practitioner on the planet. She has an amazing work ethic. She’s an amazing athlete. She definitely needs to work on her MMA skills, but her ground game in phenomenal. Any women on the planet goes to the ground with Mackenzie and Mackenzie is going to tap her, or dominate her like she did her first opponent.”
She’ll likely get her striking shored up if she focuses on it now, but she’s hovering between weight classes and that could leave her at a major disadvantage. She missed the strawweight limit of 116 pounds twice in her four-fight career, and moved up to the 125-pound flyweight division for this fight. Dern has already said she’s at a reach disadvantage against flyweights, so she’s going to try to move back down to 115 if she can. Until then, she’ll probably keep winning.
