Mackenzie Dern arrived in Abu Dhabi on Oct. 13, a full 12 days before the biggest fight of her life.
And who can blame her? There’s something to be said for getting acclimated to her new environs. And there just might also be something about the capital of the United Arab Emirates that works well for Dern.
Ten years after stunning the combat sports world, the Huntington Beach strawweight returns in a full-circle moment of her fighting career to challenge Virna Jandiroba for the vacant 115-pound championship at UFC 321 on Saturday.
“I couldn’t pick a better place than to be here in Abu Dhabi fighting for the belt,” Dern, 32, said of her five-round co-main event in an exclusive Zoom interview last week.
In 2015 at the World Jiu-Jitsu Championship in Abu Dhabi, Dern overcame an 0-4 record and a roughly 100-pound size disadvantage against the 6-foot-2 Gabi Garcia to pull off the equally massive upset.
“I just feel like the stars are lining, everything’s aligning,” said Dern, a third-degree black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under her renowned father, Megaton Dias.
A year after defeating Garcia for the gold medal, Dern entered the MMA realm seeking a bigger platform. She went 5-0 before joining the UFC in 2018 and has since gone 10-5.
The challenges have been abundant. Dern had to expand her repertoire and become accustomed to striking, constantly honing and improving under the tutelage of esteemed boxing coach Jason Parillo. Outside the cage, she became a mom in 2019 and separated from her husband, Wesley Santos, in 2022. The divorce led to accusations of physical abuse and a frustrating and costly custody battle.
That stretch saw career highs and lows. Her first pro MMA loss in late 2019 was followed by a four-fight winning streak. Then Dern lost four of six fights, including her only knockout loss, and had stopped working with Parillo.
Back-to-back losses, the second being a scintillating unanimous-decision loss on short notice to Amanda Lemos at UFC 298 in February 2024 at Honda Center that came with a $50,000 Fight of the Night bonus, set Dern on a straighter path and a reunion with Parillo.
“Me and Parillo, we came back together, working together. And I think when we came back together, I was at a better place in my life, you know, with the divorce and court and all these things,” Dern (15-5) said. “I think I was just at a better place in my life to be able to absorb information, and being able to learn and really kind of taking in all the information that he was trying to give me, and being able to dedicate myself as much as him as a coach wanted me to dedicate.”
Dern’s recent career rebound came in, of all places, Abu Dhabi. She got back in the win column in August 2024 with a unanimous-decision victory over a game Loopy Godinez. In January, Dern made it two in a row by submitting Amanda Ribas via armbar in the third round of their UFC Fight Night main event in Las Vegas.
Now thanks to Weilei Zhang vacating the strawweight belt to move up in weight and challenge Valentina Shevchenko for the flyweight title, Dern finds herself in an ideal spot to take on Jandiroba (22-3), a 37-year-old Brazilian who has won five in a row, four via unanimous decision, to launch herself into the No. 1 contender position.
And this is not their first tango. Five years ago, Dern outpointed her fellow Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt 29-28 on all three scorecards at UFC 256 in Las Vegas.
Dern, who endured a broken nose in the fight and soldiered on, isn’t putting as much stock into the victory as she is in her effort.
“In five years, she’s changed a lot, you know? She’s just gotten more mature and all these things. So I’m not really even thinking about too much about her, how she feels, and all this stuff,” Dern said of Jandiroba. “But the biggest thing I take is just that, if I need it, you know, and hopefully I don’t, but if the things get tough in this fight, in these five rounds, I know it’s possible to beat her. You know what I mean?
“Like you always have that inside of you. And so, it’s like, I can do this. I did it with a broken nose. I did it, like, with barely knowing how to throw a jab.”
Dern is mindful of Jandiroba potentially trying to steal rounds with pressure in the last couple of minutes. It’s a smart strategy and Dern has to be smarter.
Under Parillo, Dern has not only elevated her striking but grown comfortable on the feet and knowing when to exchange. That comfort factor and her grit, she believes, give her the edge over Jandiroba.
“I think that she’s going to come with everything she has. And I know she has her age, she has experience, she has her background,” Dern said. “You know, just how many years she’s been in this and going after this too. She has a lot of girls that are in the UFC training with her, so she has really good training pushing her. So I definitely think this is going to be a tough fight.”
UFC 321
When: Saturday
Where: Etihad Area, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
How to watch: prelims (7 a.m., ESPN+, Disney+); main card (11 a.m., ESPN+ via PPV)