Mackenzie Dern is a very interesting case of a BJJ star transitioning into MMA successfully. Despite her setbacks, Dern is 12-3 in MMA and about to headline her third UFC event against Angela Hill.
Dern was on the verge of being a title contender prior to suffering a setback against Yan Xionan. Xionan defeated Dern by decision after 5 rounds.
Dern is approaching her clash with Hill as a favorite however the UFC fanbase was taken a back by Dern’s failure to admit fault in loss to Xionan and instead blame the bad performance on divorce.
She expressed the impact of her divorce and gym-related issues, emphasizing the hurdles she has had to overcome. Her coach, Jason Parillo, was away for a month, training alongside Luke Rockhold for his bare-knuckle debut.
Dern told media:
“This whole camp has been so crazy,” Dern said. “My divorce has been so crazy. Everything. My coach [Jason] Parillo was out of town for a month with Luke [Rockhold] for his bare-knuckle fight.”
“I feel like so many things are trying to bring me down. I changed managers, the divorce, the gym. There’s so much stuff going on that I don’t want something to take me off of my course. To stay on course I need to have a plan.”
To make matters worse, Dern admitted that MMA strategy wasn’t really a factor in her training camps up to this point.
“And I feel kind of like, man, I’m like 10 fights in the UFC and I just found that out now, you know? To understand that I just need to win the round, and if you do that each round, you win the fight. I would finish the round and out of one minute I’d spend 20 second thinking did I win that round? At this level, the Top 5, the Top 10, you can’t finish the round and not know if you won or not.”
Dern told fanatics view:
“This fight is actually even worse because, I mean, I don’t know for who’s been through a divorce, but the beginning of the divorce was a little bit easier than now. Now it’s like child support, spouse support, and all these lawyers and all this stuff.”
John Davis is a dedicated practitioner of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, having first started training in the martial art in 2011. Despite facing significant knee issues that have sidelined him for a period, John remains passionate about the sport and continues to follow all the latest developments in the BJJ community.