Mackenzie Dern has her eyes on the ultimate prize.
Dern will be competing this Friday night (March 10) inside the Cowboy Dancehall in San Antonio, Texas. Her opponent will be Katherine Roy. If Dern can earn a win at LFA 6, she could be one step closer to making her Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) debut.
The Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt recently spoke to MMAInterviews.TV. Dern said she’s been working a bit on her stand-up, but admitted she ultimately wants to take all of her opponents to the ground. She also has big aspirations if she ever enters the Octagon (via MMAMania.com):
“My goal of course is to be a UFC champion. A lot of people ask me ‘What if they make a 125-pound division?’ I know for sure I’ll keep making up new goals. if I win the 115 division (title), I’ll try to become the 125 champion too. But I think the biggest thing right now is to just live up to everyone’s expectations. There’s so much hype. I am confident in my ground game. My stand-up game is getting there with my team behind me. But I’m not worried about the pressure. I know that I can live up to it. It’s just going to make me work that much harder. At least in the training for me, my coaches make me do so many private lessons just training my stand-up. Even in sparring, we do sparring just standing up just so I’m not nervous or uncomfortable standing up. But the goal is always to go to the ground. I can’t even hide my strategy, everyone knows I want to go to the ground.”
