UFC star Mackenzie Dern has revealed how Ronda Rousey was one of her influences when it comes to breaking into mixed martial arts.
As we know, Mackenzie Dern has been one of the most notable names in women's MMA for many years now. At UFC 321, she'll get the opportunity to finally claim UFC gold when she goes head to head with Virna Jandiroba for the vacant UFC strawweight championship.
While some believe she doesn't deserve such an opportunity, others have noted how much Mackenzie Dern has been through in order to get to this point. If she can claim the gold, it'll serve as quite the rise to prominence that started many years ago when she was first signed to the promotion.
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"No, I wasn't even thinking about the title when I went into MMA. I just went like—like I said, the UFC, they signed me before I had even done any fight in MMA at all, you know, before LFA, before Legacy. So they signed me like with the developmental plan and they said try it out, see if you like it, if you do want to stay in it, you know, I'm signed already with them. If not, no problem.
"Well, you can stop and then go back to jiu-jitsu, whatever you want to do. So I went into it like, ‘Oh, Ronda Rousey, everyone’s just like, yeah, you should do it. You're really good at jiu-jitsu and you can go into like movies and this and that.’… I started growing.
"I think actually my fight with Bina was one of the first fights when I like kind of realized and I thought like, ‘Okay, I think I have it in me,’ you know, 'cause I broke my nose and it was kind of just like we stayed all three rounds striking, and, you know, she was way more experienced than me… That’s kind of when I was like, 'Okay, I think I really want to get better at striking and I want to like take this serious.'… That mindset of a champion started growing in me."
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