The UFC is booking a rematch between two top strawweight contenders for a Fight Night in December. AG Fight was the first to report that in December, the seventh ranked strawweight Amanda Ribas (12-5) will try to win a second fight over eighth ranked Mackenzie Dern (14-5).
The Fight Night is scheduled for December 14th and it appears that it will go down in Tampa, Florida. For Ribas, this fight will mark her return to 115 pounds. Over the past few years, Ribas has bounced back between strawweight and flyweight and she’s actually a top ten contender in both divisions.
At 125, she went 1-3 but the three losses came against Rose Namajunas, Maycee Barber, and Katlyn Cerminara. She had a win over Viviane Araujo at 125. Since she made her UFC debut back in 2019, she’s fought seven times at strawweight and her record is an impressive 6-1. Her lose strawweight loss was to Marina Rodriguez while she has wins over Mackenzie Dern, Virna Jandiroba, and most recently, Luana Pinheiro.
UFC Fight Night
Mackenzie Dern has had a very interesting few years inside the octagon. After winning her first two UFC fights, Dern was out for a year and a half after she had her daughter. Her first fight back was the Amanda Ribas fight in 2019 where she lost a unanimous decision. That was also her first professional MMA loss.
Following that loss, she won four fights in a row, three by submission. She was knocking on the door of title contention. However, since then, it’s been a little rough. She’s 3-4 in her last seven fights with some pretty tough losses in there. Most recently, she looked great against Loopy Godinez and won a decision earlier this month.
The problem with Dern is her consistency. In some fights, she’ll look incredibly sharp with her striking and she’ll look like she’s really progressing. Then she’ll come out and look like she’s never thrown a punch. If she can find some consistency and really start to dial things in, she can definitely challenge for a UFC title in the future. A big step in the right direction will be getting a win back against Ribas in December.