{"id":440958,"date":"2026-01-29T14:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T14:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/440958\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T14:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T14:03:09","slug":"mackenzie-dern-prepared-to-face-really-strong-contender-zhang-weili","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/440958\/","title":{"rendered":"Mackenzie Dern prepared to face \u2018really strong contender\u2019 Zhang Weili"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following her strawweight title win in October 2025, Mackenzie Dern has been the UFC\u2019s go-to girl whenever Paramount+ wants to show off the more glamorous side of the sport. Dern made a dazzling appearance<\/a> on the red carpet of the Golden Globes, a more confused appearance<\/a> on the broadcast itself, and then got plenty of screen time during UFC 324.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no date scheduled for Dern\u2019s first title defense, but we do know the front-runner for her opponent: former 115 pound champ Zhang Weili, who found out the hard way that 125 pounds is a whole different ballgame when she got blanked on the scorecards<\/a> by Valentina Shevchenko in November.<\/p>\n

MMA Junkie<\/a> spoke with Dern at UFC 324, who sounded prepared for Zhang\u2019s return back to strawweight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019ve been girls I think that could come up depending on their fight schedule,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I think Weili is a really, really strong contender.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dern won her title by beating Virna Jandiroba, no easy feat. But Zhang Weili is considered a level above everyone else at strawweight, and there\u2019s a general opinion that Mackenzie needs to beat Zhang to cement her position at the top of the division.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t feel like I need to, but I feel like the fans really want to see it, you know what I mean?\u201d Dern said of that. \u201cIf she wanted to retire today, she could because she\u2019s accomplished so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I don\u2019t put that pressure on myself that I need to fight her, but it would definitely be very fulfilling to beat her and kind of solidify to anyone that had a doubt that I\u2019m the real champion and I just didn\u2019t get it easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The obvious opponent for Dern is Zhang, but given Mackenzie\u2019s popularity and potential mainstream appeal, we wouldn\u2019t be surprised if she gets a chance to defend against someone other than Zhang first, especially if Weili isn\u2019t ready for whatever date the UFC has in mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following her strawweight title win in October 2025, Mackenzie Dern has been the UFC\u2019s go-to girl whenever Paramount+…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82,702],"class_list":["post-440958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}