Mackenzie Dern’s coach reveals ideal opponent for first UFC title defense
UFC strawweight champion Mackenzie Dern‘s coach Jason Parillo has given his thoughts on who she should defend her belt against first.
Earlier this year, Mackenzie Dern defeated Virna Jandrioba to become the new UFC strawweight champion. The belt was previously held by Zhang Weili, but she vacated it in order to pursue a bout with Valentina Shevchenko for the UFC flyweight championship. In the end, she came up short in that encounter.
Mackenzie Dern has already achieved her goal of capturing UFC gold, but as you can imagine, she wants more. She wants to prove that she is the undisputed belt strawweight on the planet right now, and she will be hoping to get in there and defend her title sooner rather than later.
In a recent interview, the aforementioned Jason Parillo had the following to say about who Mackenzie Dern should fight next, and the answer probably won’t surprise you.
Jason Parillo’s view on Mackenzie Dern’s next opponent
“I would love to see her fight Weili. I want her to fight Weili,” Parillo told MMA Junkie Radio. “As a matter of fact, after she beat (Amanda) Ribas, I’m like, ‘I would like to see us get one more fight before we fight for the title’ because it would have been our third fight back after our little break up there, and I still wanted her to be settled down a little bit more. And you know what? We got that fight. It was for the title, and she won it. Now I’ve got to believe in my heart of hearts, and she’s got to believe in her heart of hearts. Most importantly, she’s got to stay in the gym.”
“I definitely anticipate her coming down just because she was shutout so cleanly,” Parillo said of Weili. “And sure, size. Size of course – I mean that’s why we have weight classes. That was a 10-pound jump. I mean in that small of a division, to do a 10-pound jump is pretty significant. Size comes into play, but Valentina’s control of distance, she’s always been a very high-level fighter as far as understanding that. She comes from that world, and she applies it geniously to the MMA game, and she just controlled Weili.”
Quotes via MMA Junkie
