Mackenzie Dern reveals pivotal loss that helped her reach UFC title

Of her five losses, Mackenzie Dern considers one to be the most pivotal of her career. Because without it, she might not currently be the UFC strawweight champion. While Dern became a professional MMA fighter in 2016 and made her UFC debut in March 2018, it wasn't until an October 2022 setback against Yan Xiaonan that her mindset changed for the better. Before then, Dern admits she approached her fights with a predominantly – if not exclusively – Brazilian jiu-jits mindset given her decorated past. But after losing a hard-fought majority decision against Xiaonan in the UFC Fight Night 211 main event and nearly pulling off a last-minute submission, Dern walked away with a different mentality that has stuck with her ever since. "I was training so hard for a long amount of time, and I felt, from a jiu-jitsu girl mindset in a street fight, that I won the fight, but one judge gave it a draw, and I lost a majority decision," Dern told MMA Junkie Radio on Thursday. "Once I kind of saw that mindset of judges, that really helped just turn my mind from not just a jiu-jitsu girl trying to have my jiu-jitsu mentality, but it really turned me into an MMA fighter. It helped me understand OK, we have these judges, and they're (from the Association of Boxing Commissions). I mean, as a jiu-jitsu girl, I can know how much danger the girl was in. From striking, if you land a shot, you can physically see they were in danger. But in jiu-jitsu, only if you're in there and can hear how close they are to passing out or how close their arm is to breaking, that would be like a knockdown for us in jiu-jitsu. "So just understanding the visual effect you have, the visual behind the sport I'm in now, which is MMA, that really helped click my mind into training and playing it better in the game, setting stuff up and not just attacking right away. … That loss was a big change in my mindset, and I think that's what helped me to get better at becoming an MMA fighter and just eventually a champion now." More: Jason Parillo 'a ring-rust guy' but isn't worried about Mackenzie Dern at UFC 330 Dern, 33, became champion last October when she defeated Virna Jandiroba to claim the vacant 115-pound title given up by Zhang Weili. Nearly 10 months later, Dern will look for her first title defense when she takes on Gillian Robertson in Saturday's UFC 330 co-main event (Paramount+) at Xfinity Mobile Center Arena in Philadelphia. This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Mackenzie Dern reveals pivotal loss that helped her reach UFC title