Mackenzie Dern Knows “Now It’s My Time” To Capture a World Title at UFC 321
Mackenzie Dern believes her time is now.
After seven years and 15 fights inside the Octagon, Dern will look to cash in on her first title opportunity when she meets Virna Jandiroba at UFC 321 for the vacant strawweight world championship.
Earlier this year, former two-time 115-pound champion Zhang Weili relinquished her crown in a bid to move up and challenge reigning flyweight titleholder Valentina Shevchenko.
As soon as she heard the news, Dern was confident that she’d get the call to fight for the title, though the wait was a little longer than what she’d hoped for.
“It’s like you got to take each day and do your best because you never know what opportunities are going to come to you, and you got to be ready for those,” Dern told MMA Fighting. “I’ve had some great fights with Yan, Amanda Lamos, Marina Rodriguez—almost there, and I kind of fell short a few times—but it was all for a reason because it wasn’t my time yet. And now it’s my time. So I’m really excited.”
“I definitely expected this fight. Because they were talking about Weili going up, I was like, ‘Okay, if she does go up, this is the fight that makes sense.’ But it took forever to confirm if that was actually going to happen. And I was like, ‘Am I going to fight for it or not?’ I was already like 8 months since my last fight in January, and I was just like, man, I want to fight, pay the bills, not be too long without fighting.”
With impressive performances against Loopy Godinez and Amanda Ribas in her last two outings, Dern is riding a wave of momentum ahead of Saturday’s pay-per-view event in Abu Dhabi. Adding to Dern’s confidence is the fact that she already holds a victory over Jandiroba, having beaten the Brazilian via unanimous decision at UFC 256 in December 2020.
Of course, much has changed since then, but Dern is nonetheless confident that by night’s end, she will have the strawweight strap firmly wrapped around her waist.
