UFC Strawweight Mackenzie Dern picked up the biggest win of her career when she defeated Amanda Cooper last day at UFC 224. However, Dern’s win was overshadowed by her failure to make weight.
Dern missed weight by a whopping seven pounds and had drawn criticism from the whole MMA community. In a recent interview, Dern opened up about her weight cut and said that she feels ‘ashamed’ about the same.
“I can tell you 10,000 excuses but I really believe what happened with my weight was way back months ago in my last fight. I think it’s my diet, I need to get my diet . The fact that 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. I missed flights and a lot of things happened and I just kept going and going. The UFC, since the first day I got here, were trying to help me and I said I was going to be able to make weight and I didn’t,” she said. (via MMA Nytt)
She also pointed out that there are champions who are getting caught for drugs and cocaine.
“On Friday, at 9 a.m. I wasn’t cutting anymore weight, I was in the sauna and there’s no more water coming out, I wasn’t sweating. I couldn’t walk anymore and the commission said you can’t keep going. Thankfully, Amanda accepted the fight. I’m ashamed at that. I don’t want that to happen again but it’s a mistake. Not that one thing is worse than the other, but I don’t take steroids, I wasn’t popped for anything. There are champions that are caught for drugs and cocaine and things like that. For me it’s a mistake. The UFC is investing in me and I’m going to work with them not to happen ever again,” she added.
Going to stay in Strawweight
Despite the weight issues, Dern plans to stay in the Strawweight division.
“My manager said that the UFC would want me to move up in weight. I believe that they won’t. On Friday, [UFC matchmaker] Mick [Maynard] called me and said we have in 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 I’m going to work with you guys. I can’t lose that opportunity to get all this help from this organization that is so big and it’s going to help me make weight,” she concluded.
Dern is still undefeated in her professional MMA career and went 7-0 thanks to her win over Amanda Cooper at UFC 224.
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