Mackenzie Dern was not caught off guard by Weili Zhang vacating her strawweight crown ahead of her flyweight championship super fight with reigning titleholder Valentina Shevchenko and had multiple reasons as to why that was the case.
This was discussed during an interview on The Ariel Helwani Show as Dern heads into her next fight in pursuit of that aforementioned vacant strap at 115 pounds. The 32-year-old will clash with Virna Jandiroba at UFC 321 on October 25th with the victor receiving the strawweight championship. Amid a wild journey where she found out via social media that her Jandiroba clash would be for the title and specifically addressing if she was surprised by the belt being vacant in the first place, Dern said,
"No, I'm not surprised. I mean, I think like depending on how her fight with Valentina would be, if it would be anything like Alexa [Grasso] and Valentina [Shevchenko], they could do like a trilogy, you know, and all this stuff. So, I think it's just… it just makes sense, you know, not to put the division on hold. And she was so dominant in the strawweight division, you know what I mean?"
"It's just like everyone they were throwing at her, she was just beating. So, I mean, I think even if she wants to come back after the one fight with Valentina, I think that it would make sense. But I mean, I figured maybe she'd want to have two belts, you know, but I think depending how her fight goes with Valentina, she might want to have like trilogy or something like that, and that could take a while."
Mackenzie Dern and her prior history in the UFC with Virna Jandiroba
Mackenzie Dern and Virna Jandiroba are on a collision course for championship gold in the coming weeks but this is not the first time that the two prolific combatants will compete against each other. At UFC 256 in December 2020, Dern emerged victorious against Jandiroba by way of unanimous decision.
Dern is presently the number five ranked contender in the division while Jandiroba enters the octagon as the number one ranked strawweight contender in the UFC for this highly anticipated sequel clash.
