{"id":768865,"date":"2026-06-30T01:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T01:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/768865\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T01:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T01:14:15","slug":"mackenzie-dern-unsure-why-weili-zhang-fight-didnt-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/768865\/","title":{"rendered":"Mackenzie Dern Unsure Why Weili Zhang Fight Didn\u2019t Happen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Strawweight champion Mackenzie Dern defends her 115-pound title for the first time against fellow submission ace Gillian Robertson in the co-main event of UFC 330<\/a>, which goes down Sat., Aug. 15, 2026, inside Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Dern vs. Robertson<\/a> is a fun matchup on paper. Both women are elite grapplers, and the tension between them is already starting to build.<\/p>\n

Still, many expected Dern\u2019s first title defense to come against the woman who vacated the belt in the first place<\/a>: Weili Zhang.<\/p>\n

That is not what happened.<\/p>\n

And according to Dern, she does not really know why.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t give you that response,\u201d Dern told Ariel Helwani today. \u201cI don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know. I mean, they were talking about Weili. They had mentioned UFC Macau, the White House and New Jersey. I\u2019m not sure what happened<\/a> or what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they came back with Gillian Robertson, I think after her win against Amanda Lemos, that was maybe April,\u201d Dern continued. \u201cSo yeah, it\u2019s August 15 in Philadelphia, which is where I think she trains. It\u2019s exciting, but I\u2019m not sure what the deal with Weili is or what is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked if she was disappointed by the decision \u2014 especially with some fans pushing the narrative that she is not the \u201creal champion\u201d because she never beat Zhang \u2014 Dern explained that she believes the fight will happen eventually.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, I definitely wasn\u2019t disappointed,\u201d Dern said. \u201cI mean, I would be excited to fight her, but not in a pressure way like I need to prove people. I feel like a lot of people talk about how I\u2019m not the champ because I didn\u2019t beat her and stuff like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would\u2019ve been an honor, and it would\u2019ve been amazing to beat her,\u201d Dern continued. \u201cBut yeah, if I have six more months or however many title fights I have to get in to just get better and better and be more prepared to fight her<\/a>, I\u2019m excited for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dern also pushed back on the criticism surrounding her championship reign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who are [saying I\u2019m not a champion] obviously have never been a champion in fighting,\u201d Dern said. \u201cProbably a school race in high school or something like that, maybe the max, but nobody that\u2019s been a UFC champion has said anything like that or anybody that\u2019s really accomplished something. There\u2019s only so much you can do. It doesn\u2019t really bother me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zhang has not officially made her intentions clear<\/a> after her failed attempt to become a two-division champion last year <\/a>at UFC 322. It remains unclear if she plans to stay at Flyweight or return to Strawweight, where she built one of the best resumes in the division\u2019s history and recorded four title defenses across two reigns.<\/p>\n

However, if UFC was discussing multiple possible dates for Dern vs. Zhang, that at least suggests the promotion still views \u201cMagnum\u201d as part of the Strawweight title picture.<\/p>\n

For now, though, Dern has Robertson in front of her.<\/p>\n

And if she keeps winning, the Weili question is not going anywhere.<\/p>\n

To checkout UFC\u2019s upcoming schedule of events click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Strawweight champion Mackenzie Dern defends her 115-pound title for the first time against fellow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396,179146,355513],"class_list":["post-768865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-on-paramount","tag-ufc-mma-social-media-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}