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Mackenzie Lynne Dern

Creator credit recorded on the linked source page: Canal Faixa Preta · CC BY 3.0

Mackenzie Lynne Dern

Raised on her father's mats in Arizona, she won jiu-jitsu world titles at every belt, beat Gabi Garcia in Abu Dhabi and later became UFC champion there.

Biography

Mackenzie Dern, born March 24, 1993, in Phoenix, Arizona, is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt who won world titles with and without the gi, the traditional uniform, and at the ADCC championship before moving into mixed martial arts. Her father, Wellington "Megaton" Dias, taught her from early childhood and awarded every one of her belts. A featherweight who kept entering the open class, she ended Gabi Garcia's long unbeaten run at black belt in Abu Dhabi in 2015. Ten years later, in the same city, she won the UFC women's strawweight title. Growing up on the mat Dias, a Brazilian grappling competitor, had run his academy in Arizona since she was born, and she came along from infancy. By three she was training, and by six she was competing. Asked in 2013 how she found the sport, she said he had taken her to the academy as a small child and taught her the positions, and she named him as the person most responsible for her jiu-jitsu. As a youngster she also entered judo tournaments to keep her throws sharp. At 14 she decided to give jiu-jitsu her full attention, with the aim of becoming a professional athlete. She grew up moving between Arizona and Brazil, her father's native country, and speaks English and Portuguese. She holds both American and Brazilian citizenship, and in 2021 she said she feels Brazilian at heart: Portuguese is the language she lives and dreams in, and although she learned jiu-jitsu in the United States, where her father had come to run his gym, she always chooses to represent Brazil. World titles on the way up In 2008, at 15, she won the juvenile blue-belt lightweight division at the IBJJF World Championship. She won the adult blue-belt featherweight division in 2009 and again in 2010, when she also took silver in the blue-belt open class. The purple-belt featherweight title followed in 2011, and in 2012, as a brown belt, she won both her weight class and the open class. That made her a world champion at every colored belt. Her father coached her through those years, and BJJ Heroes also credits Royler Gracie and Letícia Ribeiro with guiding her grappling; the site traces her lineage from Carlos and Helio Gracie through Royler Gracie and her father. At 18, still short of black belt, she appeared on a Japanese television show against Masumi Yagi, a 37-year-old male judo black belt and comedian. The match ran two three-minute rounds under gi jiu-jitsu rules, with her father in her corner. Yagi landed throws; she answered with back takes, a flying armbar attempt and a sweep to mount. Black belt Her father promoted her to black belt in December 2012, three months before her 20th birthday. She opened her black-belt career in January 2013 with a Copa Pódio superfight against the experienced Luiza Monteiro, winning 8–2, and within weeks she won the featherweight division at the IBJJF European Championship. That year she also drew with Michelle Nicolini in a superfight at Metamoris 2. In an interview during her first year at the rank, she said she was still adjusting to it while competing, traveling for seminars and camps and teaching women's classes, and that her goal was the black-belt world title. That title took time. In both 2013 and 2014 she took silver in her division at the Pan Championship and bronze at the World Championship, where Nicolini won in 2014 ahead of Tammi Musumeci. In 2014 she did win featherweight gold at the Brazilian National Championship, at the Asian Championship, where she also won the open class, and at the No-Gi World Championship, which Jits Magazine counts as her first black-belt world title. The open class and Gabi Garcia Dern often competed at 56.5 kg, but Jits Magazine noted that she entered the open class, where there is no weight limit, almost every time. The magazine also named heavier world champions she had beaten, among them Fernanda Mazzelli, Venla Luukkonen, Talita Nogueira and Dominyka Obelenyte. The open class also brought her up against Gabrielle "Gabi" Garcia again and again. Garcia beat her in the open-class finals of the 2014 No-Gi World Championship and of the 2015 European and Pan championships. In April 2015, at the World Professional Jiu-Jitsu Championship in Abu Dhabi, Dern, then 22, beat Garcia on a penalty point in the open-class semifinal. The National reported it as Garcia's first defeat at black belt in more than five years. Dern had faced her four times before and told The National she had tried something different in each match; this time she worked with the collar, dealt with Garcia's kneebar threat and picked her moments. To Gulf News she said she had learned from every meeting and had chosen to attack rather than over-defend. She then won the open-class final 6–0 against Vanessa Nascimento. By her own account she pulled guard and went after the legs, swept Nascimento and took her back, and in the last minute kept the position instead of spending her energy on a choke. It was also the first time in five trips to Abu Dhabi that she had won her own weight division there. Leg attacks run through her record. BJJ Heroes lists open guard as her favorite position, and its table of her matches counts 75 wins, 45 of them by submission, including 15 by toe hold and five by kneebar. 2015 to 2017 In 2015, after two years of bronze, she won the featherweight division at the World Championship. The same season brought featherweight titles at the Pan Championship, the Brazilian Nationals and the Asian Championship, where she again added the open class, and the open-class title at the No-Gi World Championship. In Brazil that year she won the women's under-60 kg division at the ADCC Submission Fighting World Championship, ahead of Nicolini and Musumeci. She kept her Pan and World featherweight titles in 2016, won the European featherweight division and, at the Asian Championship, both the lightweight division and the open class. In 2017 she won the European featherweight title again. By then she had black-belt gold from the IBJJF World, Pan, European, Brazilian National and Asian championships. In the IBJJF results, including those of the 2017 European Championship, her team is listed as Gracie Humaitá. Into mixed martial arts After a few months of training at the MMA Lab, Dern signed with Legacy FC in early 2016; she told MMA Fighting she hoped to represent jiu-jitsu well. Her professional debut came at Legacy FC 58 on July 22, 2016, a unanimous-decision win over Kenia Rosas, and she was 4–0 when she signed with Invicta FC in November 2017. For a while she ran both careers side by side. Before the 2017 World Pro, where she was chasing a third straight title at 55 kg, she said at 24 that this could be her last full jiu-jitsu season, and that afterward she might enter only a few events such as the World Pro. Her father told Gulf News he was a little worried about the move to MMA and said that perhaps she ought to become a model instead, but said that as a professional he wanted to see her compete and thought she could be among the best in her class if she reached the UFC. According to Jits Magazine, she turned fully to MMA after ADCC 2017. Weight was an early hurdle. She missed the strawweight limit in two of her first three professional fights, and her December 2017 Invicta bout against Kaline Medeiros was meant to show she could make the division. After it she was 5–0 and booked for her UFC debut. In the UFC Dern passed on a UFC debut in Rio de Janeiro because of the pressure and debuted instead in Las Vegas, beating Ashley Yoder by split decision at UFC 222 in March 2018. She then asked for a place on the UFC 224 card in Brazil, where her father would see one of her MMA fights in person for the first time. On May 12, 2018, in Rio de Janeiro, she needed only the first round to submit Amanda Cooper, finishing with a rear-naked choke. She paused her MMA career in early 2019 and returned that October. On October 12, 2019, she lost for the first time as a professional, a unanimous decision against Amanda Ribas. On May 30, 2020, she caught Hannah Cifers in a kneebar 2:36 into the first round, the first time a woman had finished a UFC fight with any kind of leg lock. The win earned her a $50,000 Performance of the Night bonus. Her first UFC main event, in October 2021, was a decision loss to Marina Rodriguez that was named Fight of the Night. Looking back in 2022, she said criticism of her striking and takedowns had made her second-guess herself during that fight, and that she now meant to trust her own instincts. She described herself as a jiu-jitsu grappler who is willing to throw punches. On May 20, 2023, she beat Angela Hill by unanimous decision at UFC Vegas 73, another Fight of the Night. During the post-fight interview in the Octagon, her father promoted her to third degree. He holds a coral belt, and Dern has described watching him receive that seventh-degree rank as a reward for his long dedication to the art. A return to grappling In January 2024 she announced on Instagram that she planned to compete in jiu-jitsu again that year, starting in no-gi. In March, ADCC invited her to its new women's under-55 kg division at the 2024 World Championship, which would have been her first professional grappling appearance in seven years. In June she left the ADCC bracket to face Ffion Davies in a single match at the Craig Jones Invitational; Davies was the competitor she had earlier said she most wanted to face. Explaining the switch, Dern said she already had an ADCC title and her UFC career came first. The invitational offered a large purse for one match of three five-minute rounds, a format she compared to MMA after seven or eight years away from grappling, and she did not want to risk pulling out of ADCC late and costing another woman her chance. Leaving ADCC, she said, had been hard. When they met, Davies took her down and reached her back in the first round, then threw her with harai goshi, a judo hip throw, took her back again and finished with an armbar. Champion Before her 2025 title fight she pointed to a grappler's habit that can cost her in MMA: being comfortable on her back, she had always tended to accept takedowns, which her coach warned her against, because a strong opponent with good pressure can pin her and win a round. On October 25, 2025, at UFC 321 in the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, Dern, then 32, won the UFC women's strawweight title over Virna Jandiroba, whom she had also beaten in their first fight; all three judges had her ahead, at 48–47, 48–47 and 49–46. Jits Magazine judged her striking much improved, built on a steady jab, while she stayed dangerous off her back whenever Jandiroba took her down. Gulf News reported that she was the first woman to win a UFC title in the Middle East. Dern called it a full-circle moment: she had pictured herself contesting the title in 2025, a decade after her jiu-jitsu victory in the same city. She made her first title defense on August 15, 2026, at UFC 330 in Philadelphia, beating Gillian Robertson with repeated takedowns, back takes and choke attempts to win on all three cards (49–46, 49–46 and 48–47). As of September 2026 the UFC lists her as its women's strawweight champion with a 17–5 record, eight of the wins by submission, and names Megaton Dias BJJ as the gym where she trains.

Sources for this profile

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