​Mackenzie Dern and Gillian Robertson will meet at UFC
330.Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed below are those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company,
Evolve Media.
* * *
As UFC
330 approaches, there’s a unique dichotomy between the two
title fights on the card. One features a champion whose bona fides
in the division are questionable, with the question being whether
he obtained the title due to a favorable matchup after abandoning
the stranglehold he had on his previous division. On the flip side,
the other champion only claimed the championship after the previous
dominant champion left to pursue glory a division up. We’re getting
the champion whose greatest glory came in a different division and
the champion who can only make that claim because someone else
abandoned the division.
While there’s no doubt Islam
Makhachev is an all-time great, there are still a lot of
questions regarding Mackenzie
Dern. Makhachev is tied for the longest winning streak in
Ultimate Fighting Championship history and broke the
lightweight division record for title defenses before jumping to
welterweight, not to mention four wins over three former champions
— totals that jump to five and four if we include interim
champions. By comparison, Dern’s winning streak presently sits at
three, she doesn’t have a successful title defense yet and she has
zero wins over former champions, something that tends to be a
rarity for reigning titleholders.Weili Zhang’s shadow hangs over Mackenzie Dern’s UFC 330 title
defense against Gillian Robertson
Despite being the proud owner of an official UFC title belt, Dern
doesn’t give off a championship vibe. It isn’t entirely her fault.
She did what she was supposed to do when she defeated Virna
Jandiroba to claim the vacant title, but it was a vacant title.
Not taking the belt from the dominant Weili Zhang
hurts the legitimacy of her claim to being the best strawweight on
the planet. Regardless of whether she’s the official champion, she
didn’t beat the woman who was previously considered the best
strawweight in the world. Even worse for Dern, Zhang looms over the
division after coming up short in her attempt at 125 pounds,
leaving a very real possibility that she returns to the division
she formerly ruled.
Beating whoever is put in front of her is what Dern is supposed to
do, but even those victories appear to have asterisks. The first
win in her streak was over Lupita
Godinez, someone considered to have one of the worst fight IQs
in the sport. As talented as Godinez is, she opted to go to the
ground with Dern on multiple occasions despite Dern being one of
the most credentialed and talented Brazilian jiu-jitsu
practitioners on the planet. It was a quality win, but one that
could be argued was gift-wrapped to her. The second win came over
Amanda
Ribas, someone currently on a three-fight losing streak and
struggling with me