A Brazilian grappling specialist and rising star Mackenzie Dern entered the famed Octagon last night (Sat, May 12, 2018) to clash with Amanda Cooper and her second outing looked a lot better than her first. Dern drops her opponent Cooper with a big overhand right and earns a dominating first-round submission win. But her victory massively overshadowed by her significant weigh-in failure, as Dern came in at 123 pounds, which is 7 pounds over the strawweight limit.
Dern said she is aware of the criticism and vowed to make changes to her diet. At the UFC 224 post-fight press conference, Brazilian said she’s ashamed of continues failure to make weight. (Quotes via MMAMania)
”I can tell you 10,000 excuses, but I really believe that what happened with my weight is way back months ago in my last fight,” Dern said. “I think it’s my diet. I think I need to get my diet right. And the fact I was able to do it before, I thought I knew what I was doing. A lot of things have been happening. It’s not an excuse, missed flights and a lot of things happened and I just kept going and going.”
”The UFC since my first day I got here were trying to help me, but I was saying I was going to be able to make weight because I did it last time,” she said. “But on Friday at 9AM, I wasn’t losing any more weight. I was in the sauna and there was no more water coming out, I couldn’t walk any more and the commission said ‘You can’t keep going.’ Fortunately Amanda accepted the fight.”
”I’m ashamed of that and I don’t want it to happen again … but it’s a mistake. Not that one thing is worse than the other, but I don’t take steroids, I didn’t pop for something. There’s champions that are caught using drugs, cocaine, things like that. For me it was a mistake and I’m going to work with the UFC to make sure it never happens again.”
Weight is a big concern for Dern as Brazilian needs to be committed to hitting the 115-pound mark or she needs to move up to flyweight. That was the third instance of missing weight in just seven fights, and that points to her lack of dedication to MMA.
“My manager said the UFC wants me to move up in weight,” Dern admitted. “I believe that’s what they want. On Friday, [UFC matchmaker] Mick [Maynard] called me and said we have an institute here in Vegas, and we’re going to invest in you, we want you here, we’re going to work with you, so I said OK I’m going to work for you guys.”
“I can’t lose that opportunity to get all that out from this organization which is so big and help me make weight. They told me even without a fight, they’re going to make me make weight and they’re going to stay on me, but that’s what I need. Not that it’s not important I believe in what they’re offering to me. I’m going to take their help.”
Dern remains unbeaten in her career improved to 7-0, while Cooper falls to 1-2 in her past three outings.
