LAS VEGAS – There’s a good chance of a Mackenzie Dern vs. Zhang Weili strawweight title bout, at least according to the champ herself.
A few months removed from her UFC strawweight championship win, Dern (16-5 MMA, 11-5 UFC) expects her first title defense to come soon, and it could very well be against the woman who vacated the title. Weili moved up to flyweight, opening the door for the UFC to book Dern vs. Virna Jandiroba for the vacant strap.
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Dern sees the fight as a strong possibility, as it looks like Weili won’t stick around the flyweight division following her title loss to Valentina Shevchenko.
“There’ve been girls I think that could come up depending on their fight schedule, but I think Weili is a really, really strong contender,” Dern told MMA Junkie.
Dern fought in October at UFC 321 and defeated Jandiroba by unanimous decision to win the vacant title. Weili was most recently seen in November when she fell short in capturing her second divisional title against Shevchenko, who beat her by unanimous decision.
Becuase Weili never lost her belt at 115 pounds, but vacated it for an opportunity at 125 pounds, many fans still see her as the best fighter at strawweight, despite not having the title. Dern doesn’t agree with that train of thought, but is aware of it. She doesn’t see a need to fight Weili to feel she’s the champion, but does think it could help win fan sentiment.
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“I don’t feel like I need to, but I feel like the fans really want to see it, you know what I mean?” Dern explained. “If she wanted to retire today, she could because she’s accomplished so much. So I don’t put that pressure on myself that I need to fight here, but it would definitely be very fulfilling to beat her and kind of solidify to anyone that had a doubt that I’m the real champion and I just didn’t get it easy.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Mackenzie Dern names likely next UFC title challenger
