Henry Cejudo saw the Mackenzie Dern vs. Gillian Robertson UFC 330 title fight sitting in the co-main slot and basically asked why nobody in the room was acting like there was gold on the table. The former two-division UFC champion, who has never been shy about turning cringe into a business plan, used his Pound 4 Pound show with Kamaru Usman to tell both strawweights that clean technique alone might not be enough to make casual fans care.
Watch the full discussion below:
Cejudo was talking about the August 15, 2026 card in Philadelphia, where Islam Makhachev vs. Ian Machado Garry headlines and Dern makes her first strawweight title defense against Robertson. Dern and Robertson both hit 115 pounds at Friday’s official weigh-ins, so the fight is live. The problem, in Cejudo’s view, is that the story has not punched through the way a UFC title fight is supposed to.
“I think something’s going on with women’s MMA, where it definitely has no Joanna, no Ronda,” Cejudo said. “Even Julianna Peña brought hype, a lot of hype, into women’s MMA. I don’t want to be mean, but I had no idea they were even fighting this week, to be quite frank with you. I thought they were scheduled to fight sometime in October, like in Abu Dhabi again or something like that.”
“They’ve put a lot of their promotion just on Ian Garry and Islam. It’s really overshadowed the co-main event,” Cejudo said. “Robertson, from what I know, she does have the most submission victories in strawweight history.”
“Nobody’s talking about this co-main event,” Cejudo said, before turning up the volume. “If these girls are not creating storylines, that gets it horrible. Like thank God for the men that are in there and selling the fight. If they don’t step up and start storylines, bro, people are not going to talk about them. There is a drought in women’s MMA if you haven’t noticed.”
“These girls, they got to talk s—, bro,” Cejudo said. “Who do you want to see fight? Besides Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Valentina, I don’t really get excited for anybody else. That’s just my opinion, bro.”
“Against Mackenzie? No,” Cejudo said when Usman asked whether Robertson could win. “Mackenzie on the ground, Mackenzie’s another level when it comes to that. She’s too diverse with her submissions. She doesn’t just go for a head-and-arm choke. She’s got leg locks, kneebars, arm triangles, triangles, back takes, and she can chain all that. That’s what makes her the most dangerous submission grappler right now in the UFC.”
“I’m going to put a stack on Mackenzie Dern on this,” Cejudo said before backing Dern with 65 percent of the audience poll.
“Especially the way Zhang Weili trains, Kamaru, she trains like a madman,” Cejudo said. “I think she just needs a break from the sport, especially after losing in that fashion to Valentina Shevchenko.”
Cejudo Wants A Little More Chaos Around Dern vs. Robertson
That is a very Cejudo take, for better and worse. This is the guy who turned “King of Cringe” into a strange little weapon, then rode the noise through an Olympic gold medal legacy, UFC flyweight gold, UFC bantamweight gold, and a mountain of online groans. He knows the bit can look corny. He also knows corny gets clipped, posted, argued about, and remembered.
Usman pushed back during the exchange, saying the answer is not always fighters manufacturing drama like a magic trick. Cejudo was not buying the polite version. He argued the men’s side almost always has someone willing to talk, prod, exaggerate, or at least make the public pick a side. With Dern and Robertson, he sees two excellent fighters walking into a major title fight without enough emotional heat around it.
“People love drama,” Cejudo said. “Act it out, but sell something.”
“I can’t put that on the men because there’s always a storyline with the men. Somebody will talk stuff,” Cejudo said. “But with the women, they never do any of that, Kamaru.”
“It’s f—ing plain and simple,” Cejudo continued. “You act this s— out. You don’t mean it. Act it out, but sell something. Don’t just, ‘Oh, well, she said…’ Then these f—ing commentators get on. They ask the stupidest f—ing questions. It pisses me off. ‘What did you think of the fact that she said that she has more submissions than you and that she’s not worried about your grappling?’ And then they answer cheesy, too.”
There is a real fight-business question buried under the Cejudo fireworks. Dern is a familiar name, a dangerous grappler, and now the champion. Robertson has spent years as one of the nastiest submission threats in women’s MMA, and she enters UFC 330 with serious momentum. On paper, that is a banger for hardcore fans. On the surface, it has not created the same daily churn as Makhachev and Garry, who have spent fight week trading looks, boos, and all the Philadelphia weirdness that comes with a big UFC main event.
Cejudo then pointed at Dakota Ditcheva as the type of outside star power he thinks the UFC could use in the women’s ranks. “I just feel like with women’s MMA, because it’s dying off, dude, and it’s not getting that attention,” Cejudo said. “There’s some serious star power there. The UFC needs a Dakota Ditcheva to get to the UFC and, you know, bring a little bit of pop in here.”
That line will probably annoy plenty of fighters, because women’s MMA is not short on elite talent. Kayla Harrison, Valentina Shevchenko, Zhang Weili, Dern, Robertson, Ditcheva, and others are not exactly hiding in the bushes. Cejudo’s point is less about ability and more about packaging. He wants rivalry, friction, characters, and a reason for people who do not live on fight databases to stop scrolling.
The funny part is that UFC 330 already has enough weird energy to power a small city. The official weigh-in results locked in both title fights, the host hotel had its early-morning evacuation drama, and Makhachev vs. Garry has dominated the week like a main event should. Cejudo is arguing the co-main needs to steal some of that oxygen before the cage door shuts.
Whether Dern and Robertson want to play that game is another story. Some fighters sell chaos. Some just show up and rip limbs. Cejudo clearly prefers a little theater before the violence, but once the horn sounds Saturday night, the only storyline that really matters is whether Dern can defend the belt or Robertson can drag Canadian MMA into a first-of-its-kind UFC title moment.
