Mackenzie Dern guarantees to never miss weight again

Mackenzie Dern was grateful that Amanda Cooper accepted a fight with her despite the jiu-jitsu ace being seven-pounds too heavy for their strawweight clash at UFC 224.

Although Dern was closer to flyweight than strawweight, she wasn’t surprised that “ABC” took the fight after receiving 30 percent of her purse. Dern also revealed that she gave Cooper an additional 15 percent of her win bonus after claiming victory.

“I’m not surprised. She got 30 percent of the purse, which was my penalty — usually it’s only 20 percent, but because I was so much heavier it went up to 30 percent,” Dern told Ariel Helwani on the latest episode of The MMA Hour.

“I think she was confident in the fight. I think she thought she was going to win and everything. If I was confident and I was getting 30 percent and we were giving her an extra 15 percent too — if I won I would give her 15 percent of the bonus extra too — I would have accepted the fight too.

“I was hoping she would. I was really grateful she accepted the fight,” she added.

Dern’s social media channels were inundated with comments and memes following her failure to hit the scales inside the limit. She admitted that she found some of the online reactions amusing.

“It’s kind of crazy. I see people putting hamburgers in my hands. I want to take it serious and I want to show that this won’t happen again, but with some of the memes and stuff I have to laugh. It’s kind of crazy.”

She insisted that she couldn’t feel a weight advantage when she was in the Octagon:

“As soon as I arrived the UFC weighed us and I was 138 and she was 134 or 135, so as soon as I saw that it thought, ‘She’s almost my size’. I knew my right punch was strong from the times I hit hear, but I didn’t feel so much heavier or something. I wasn’t thinking about the weight anymore.”

Dern wants to stay at strawweight and guaranteed that she wouldn’t miss weight again

“I want to stay at strawweight. Hopefully, with the help of UFC Performance Institute it will be a lot easier and it will all be under control. If they told me, ‘It’s not good for you to fight at 115’, then I would go to 125. I’ve made 115 before, three times, so I think it’s a better weight for me.”

“I can guarantee [that I won’t miss weight again],” she declared.