Mackenzie Dern has been widely touted as potentially the next Ronda Rousey. She went into her big show debut on Saturday night at UFC 222 with a perfect 5-0 record in MMA, and an extraordinary grappling pedigree, with multiple world championships. Her dad is Wellington ‘Megaton’ Dias, a 6th-degree black belt in BJJ under Royler Gracie, and the only BJJ competitor who has competed in all 22 World Jiu-Jitsu Championships, since the first edition in 1996.

Dern won a split decision vs. Ashley Yoder who now drops to 0-3 in the UFC and is likely out. The next Ronda Rousey talk will likely evolve into a more wait and see attitude. And it doesn’t hurt that Dern is also highly mediagenic. Mediagenic is a polite term for hot. And she is by all accounts a good and friendly human being. And in a sport that abounds with quirks, Dern does have a little quirk – her accent.

Hopefully, this video is not intended to be mean, as people who live in multiple countries characteristically acquire different accents over time. It’s normal, or as Anderson Silva puts it, “Eees normal.”

Shortly before the Yoder fight, Ariel Helwani asked Dern about fan online chatter around her accent.

It’s so flattering, you know?” she replied. “You know I haven’t seen this video and I won’t watch it, you know? But I’ve been asked about it. And you know I think it’s just, it’s a flattering that they think about how I’m talking.”

I think after my UFC fight they’ll pay more attention to my fighting, you know? But … they’re paying so much attention to this, it’s a compliment, you know, that they look at that. But I think it starting to … people understand, like, this is me, and who I am, and, you know, I think it will pass in a while.

Unfortunately for Dern, the UFC did her no favors when they used a translator following her win. Valley girl to Gisele Bundchen to Rousimar Palhares is a little, well, quirky.

The fighter explained at the post-fight press conference.

I’m not sure why exactly – I was thinking that maybe they brought the translator in Portuguese because they wanted me to speak Portuguese, said Dern to Fernanda Prates and John Morgan for MMAjunkie. I wanted to speak Portuguese for my fans in Brazil. I always say I have more fans in Brazil than I have in the U.S.A. So I was even going to say Portuguese, but then I thought like, I don’t know if I say English first or Portuguese first.

I was going to speak Portuguese or English. I didn’t know which one to say first, and then I think after they saw that I was speaking in English and he didn’t translate back to Portuguese, I think they said, ‘OK, better just English.’ I think that’s what happened there, but for me it was the same either way. I just saying how I felt about the fight.

So that explains that, more or less. And the simple truth is that chattering about Dern’s accent is just as quirky as the accent evolution, if not more so. It’s a quirky sport.