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Mackenzie Dern is heading for a UFC strawweight gold shot after winning four straight fights in the past 17 months, capped with a first-round submission against Nina Nunes in April, but feels compelled to do so. extra effort because of her, some perceive her looks.
The multiple world jiu-jitsu champion and ADCC gold medalist, who will headline Saturday night’s UFC Vegas 39 event against Marina Rodriguez at UFC APEX, said at the latest episode of MMA Fighting Portuguese podcast. frank exchange that women seen as “beautiful” are treated differently, but not in a good way.
“You always have to prove yourself,” Dern said. “You see men, if men are pretty in people’s opinion, men laugh at them, ‘He’s not that good.’ But the women, no, they say, ‘Let’s all watch her fight because she’s beautiful.’ We go through this, we have to prove ourselves even more.
Dern transitioned from jiu-jitsu to MMA in 2016 and won five straight wins to sign a deal with the UFC, going 2-0 at the company before the only setback of her career in 2019. Unbeaten since a loss Against Amanda Ribas, Dern still thinks fans should value her and the others the way they do.
“I’m not here for very fine fights, I go out there and submit people in the first round,” Dern said. “Of course there have been fights where I did not submit [my opponent], but I got a broken nose, showed guts and blood and things. Do you think I wanted to break my nose? You see Nick Diaz, who just fought, broke his nose and didn’t want to fight anymore, he was cool, and I don’t judge him. It was good for him. But you gotta be like, wow, you broke your nose and still came back to fight, you’re trying to win, it’s not for everyone, you know? People think it’s easy, but it’s not.
Being a woman in sports creates unique situations that men will never have to face. Dern, for example, had to put her MMA career on hold in early 2019 to give birth to her daughter Moa, which ended in October of the same year. This milestone has brought a surprising change to its social media.
“I’m still trying to grow up [my fanbase] among women, but I think it comes naturally because I present myself as a mother, a wife and a fighter, ”she said. “But still, I lost 50,000 followers quickly when I announced my pregnancy, and a total of 80,000 until my next fight, but that has definitely changed. MMA [community] has more men than women so it is impossible to have more women than men [as followers]. “
Dern approaches a million Instagram followers as she enters UFC Vegas 39 and has noticed that some people who complimented her in the past are no longer following her on the platform.
“I was deleting pictures of old sponsors, old stuff, and I was like, ‘Let me see if this person who commented here [was still following me], ‘and he wasn’t,’ Dern said. “And I started looking at several old photos and a lot of people that commented on things like ‘You are so hot’ and so on, most of them just don’t follow me anymore. I was like, ‘phew , I cleaned it. ‘
“You see OnlyFans and things like that, I don’t judge those who have it, but that’s not my goal. My goal is to represent women and change this idea that the only women who can sell are women. women considered by people to be beautiful because, to me, every woman is beautiful, every woman is pretty and everyone puts on a show.
“There are women who don’t want to get into MMA because they are afraid of becoming too masculine and changing who they are, and other women are afraid to come. [to MMA] because men will only talk about their appearance. It’s a delicate process, you don’t like crossing a line with anyone, but it will work if you’re just yourself. It works for me at least.
However, appearance and fighting skills aren’t the only things Dern is consistently judged for on social media throughout her MMA career. Her accent constantly becomes a “boring” topic on social media whenever the jiu-jitsu star is about to step into the octagon, with some claiming she is pretending to speak English with a Brazilian accent.
“People are not educating themselves about the situation,” Dern said. “Just on Google is how well I’m talking about something. All my life here in the United States I only speak Portuguese. My husband is Brazilian and our whole relationship is in Portuguese. I speak Portuguese with my daughter, we don’t speak English at home. It’s not like I can’t speak English. I stay three days a week with my birth mother, who is American, and it’s sinking again. But sometimes I get stuck.
“Sometimes I do an interview and a Brazilian [reporter] gonna ask me something in portuguese and ask me to answer it in english, you know? Fighting is my talent. I’m not the fastest person to speak and so on. For me, it’s not easy to turn off one language for the other. I do not to try speak portuguese, i dream in portuguese. Anyway, I don’t even like to explain myself, just google it, “are people losing their mother tongue?” And they will see it. But regardless, all advertising is good advertising. They wanna see me lose but still watch my fight? It is very good [laughs]. “
Speaking about her relationship with Brazil and the United States, Dern explained why she chooses to represent Brazil in sports and is disturbed when Brazilian fans don’t see her as a ‘real’ Brazilian.
“I consider myself Brazilian because of who I am, my heart, my blood,” Dern said. “I think I represent Brazil a lot more. I have never represented the United States in the UFC. But I can’t say that I don’t feel it a little bit when I fight another Brazilian, I know there are always Brazilians who say, “Oh, but she’s not a real Brazilian.” You’re like, damn, it looks like they’re never happy.
“When a Brazilian leaves Brazil and moves to the United States to have a different life, Brazilians get angry, say ‘You left your country, you want to live in the United States’, but when an American … For me , I was already born with Brazilian citizenship because of my father, but being born in the United States and obtaining citizenship, I became Brazilian.
“I do everything in Brazil. Taxes, I have my CPF [social security number], I have everything. I chose Brazil instead of the United States. I don’t do this for other people but people don’t see it, they tell me: “I’m going to cheer on the real Brazilian”. Dude, can you be more real than someone who has the opportunity to represent elsewhere and I always choose to represent Brazil, show the changes I want for Brazil. I cannot be ungrateful with everything I have here in the United States. My dad came here and has his gym here, I learned jiu-jitsu here in the US, but I’m Brazilian. That’s it.”
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