Dern: I have everything to be bigger than Rousey
Mackenzie Dern: “I have everything to be as big and bigger than what she has done.”
Competing in a sport a handful of times is not ordinarily cause for much note. However, mixed martial arts is not ordinary.
Perhaps most famously, Brock Lesnar was 2-1, and then won the UFC heavyweight championship, just 17 months after his MMA debut. Thus there is a precedent for the expectations surrounding Phoenix, Arizona’s Mackenzie Dern. While Lesnar was a wrestler, Dern is ranked by the IBJJF as the number one female black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
Dern is a second-generation fighter – her father is Wellington ‘Megaton’ Dias, a 6th degree black belt in BJJ under Royler Gracie, and the only BJJ competitor who has competed in all 21 World Jiu-Jitsu Championships, since the first edition in 1996.
At just 23 she recently won her third MMA fight, for Legacy Fighting Alliance, and comparisons are being drawn with Ronda Rousey.
“I don’t want to be like Miesha Tate and doing this for like 15 years,” said Dern to Steven Muehlhausen for Sporting News. “I can’t handle getting punched in the face for that long. I feel like I’ve been an athlete my whole life and I don’t want to get burnt out. I want to have a family and babies one day. I’m young.”
“I definitely think [Rousey’s] personality is very strong. I think that a lot of her fights she had the intimidation factor. Of course, she’s a great athlete. It was a very big advantage for her too. She’s very intimidating and going aggressive. Not that the girls were scared of her, but it’s like if she got your arm, maybe they were like ‘Oh, shoot, she gets everyone’s arm. No way, I’m going to get out.’
“With me it’s different. I don’t think people are so intimidated by me. I’m always smiling to everyone. I’m not the scariest person. I don’t know if I’ll have so many submissions or finish fights in 15 seconds. I definitely think there is only one Ronda Rousey, but I think I have everything to be as big and bigger than what she has done. … I hope to do even more and add to everything she’s done, but with my own style, my own personality, my own flavor.”
Dern promises to make her UFC debut in the latter part of 2017.