Mackenzie Dern believes the time is now.
After seven years and 15 fights in the Octagon, Dern will look to get her first title shot for the vacant strawweight world title when she takes on Vilna Jandilova at UFC 321.
Earlier this year, former two-time 115-pound champion Weili Zhang vacated her title to move up a weight class and challenge current flyweight titleholder Valentina Shevchenko.
As soon as she heard the news, Dern was sure she would get the call-up to compete for the title, but the wait was a little longer than she had hoped.
“It’s like you have to take it day by day because you never know what opportunities are going to come your way. You have to be ready for it,” Dern told MMA Fighting. “I’ve had some great matches with Yan, Amanda Ramos, Marina Rodriguez, and I’ve been so close and I’ve fallen a few times short, but it’s all for a reason, and it just wasn’t my time yet. And now it’s my time, so I’m really excited.”
“I definitely expected this match. They were talking about Weili going up, so I thought, ‘Okay, if she goes up, this is a logical match.'” But it took a long time to see if it actually happened. And I thought, “Are we going to fight for it or not?” It had already been about eight months since my last fight in January, and I was like, oh, I want to fight, I want to pay the money, I can’t go too long without fighting. ”
Dern is riding a wave of momentum heading into Saturday’s pay-per-view event in Abu Dhabi after impressive performances against Loopy Godinez and Amanda Rivas in her past two fights. Adding to Dern’s confidence is the fact that she already has a win over Jandirova, defeating the Brazilian via unanimous decision at UFC 256 in December 2020.
Of course, a lot has changed since then, but Dern is still confident that he’ll be able to wrap a strawweight strap securely around his waist by the end of the night.