Mackenzie Dern defeated Amanda Cooper by first round submission this past weekend on the main card of UFC 224.
The undefeated fighter came in an astonishing seven pounds overweight for the contest and she is ashamed for such a mishap.
“I’m ashamed of that,” Dern said at the UFC 224 post-fight press conference. “I don’t want that to happen again. 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. 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.”
Dern has fought a total of seven times as a professional MMA fighter and she has missed weight for three of those encounters.
One move Dern plans on making in the future is to go to the UFC Performance Institute to work on the weight situation.
“My manager said the UFC wants me to move up in weight. I believe that’s what they want,” Dern said. “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. “
If Dern were to move up a weight class like the UFC proposed, it would mean that she would be fighting in the flyweight division instead of at strawweight.
