The best grappler in the UFC’s strawweight division says she’d love to fight the best wrestler in the weight class, as she suggested a future fight with fellow 115-pound contender Tatiana Suarez.
Dern outpointed Loopy Godinez at UFC Abu Dhabi at the weekend to snap her two-fight skid and improve her career record to 14-5. Now she’s looking to fight up the rankings, and would love nothing more than a matchup against the current No. 1-ranked contender, assuming Suarez isn’t next up for a title shot.
Talking to UFC.com backstage after her victory over Loopy Godinez last weekend at UFC Abu Dhabi, Dern said she wants to get one more fight in this year in order to keep up her forward momentum in a busy 115-pound division.
“I feel amazing. Of course, it’s always good to be back in the win column,” she said.
“Loopy, she’s such a tough girl, and I knew it was going to be a good fight. I got better in a lot of things that I wanted to. Of course, there’s so much that I wish I did better, but yeah, it feels great.”
After her defeat to Amanda Lemos at UFC 298, Dern went back to the drawing board and worked on her skills, and her win over Godinez showcased a more patient, calm approach as Dern continues to evolve under the tutelage of veteran coach Jason Parillo.
“(I’m) Just being calmer and trying not to get into a brawl,” she explained.
“I felt like I walked back a little bit more than I usually do, when usually I feel bad about that. But even just going through all these fights and watching these fights before me, I’m thinking like, ‘Man!’ Some of the fights have been like two minutes before they’ve even had one punch thrown.
So I took that pressure off of me, I don’t have to start at 100 percent in the first 10 seconds and I just had to be calm.
“It’s a fight, so of course there’s going to be moments of tough exchanges. I think we showed a little bit of grappling, a little bit of boxing, a little bit of cagework. She’s small, she’s stocky, and it’s hard to get underneath her, she’s scrambly. So it was a good performance as a whole.
“The biggest gameplan was to use my length, try to be longer, work my jab, try to push her back when I can, but also to be OK with moving and circling and being OK with doing that. I don’t know if I feinted as much as I wanted to, but I think she was a good opponent to work on that stuff with. She’s tough, she’s coming up the ranks.”
Now, with a solid win over a gritty operator in Godinez, Dern is eyeing her next test and, with the Brazilian suggesting that her compatriot Virna Jandiroba could be next up to challenge Zhang Weili for the title, a late-2024 matchup with Suarez could be the perfect test for her next assignment.
“What’s next for me? I would like to fight maybe in November. That would be a good time for me. That would be four in a year, from November to November,” she said.
“The division is moving, I think Virna (Jandiroba) maybe will go for the belt now, so we’ll see. Maybe Tatiana Suarez, if she’s not fighting for the belt – that would be a great matchup. That would be a fight I’d really like.”
