We were witness to a pretty important main event within the strawweight division. Yan Xiaonan and Mackenzie Dern were ranked 5 and 6 within the division and were battling to potentially get right back into the title conversation. If you don't read my picks and bets posts on Saturday, then you missed where I said that I didn't do a full preview for this fight because I had a test to do in preparation for an interview and then my grandfather had surgery, so I just ran out of time to get it done. That is going to happen for UFC 280 fight week as well. I have 3 separate interviews that week and have to travel for 2 of them, so I don't think I'll be very active here. Maybe I can get some of those previews done well in advance, so we'll see. Anyways, I thought we got a really compelling fight this past weekend that was pretty fun and interesting to watch. There were a lot of hot takes coming out of it as well, so I want to address that when appropriate.
While it wasn't the flashiest performance in the world and didn't really create much of a buzz, Yan Xiaonan did a lot of good things. At this point, we know what she's capable of as a striker, so much so that she probably doesn't get enough credit. She's very smooth on the feet and pretty powerful for her size as well. Often times when we see a striker vs grappler matchup, the striker can get hyper-focused on stopping the takedown and forget to actually strike the way they know how. Yan didn't allow this to happen and she was putting out good volume for the most part. She did a good job of moving her feet and not allowing Dern to corner her. She did get backed up a bit at times and that is when we saw Dern have her best moments. She was able to circle out quite often though and kept those stretches to a minimum. Not that I ever really had concerns about her cadio, but she held up to a really high pace in this one as well. Dern was really pushing the action early on and then in the final round and Xiaonan didn't let the pressure get to her or tire her out. The big thing that we saw is an improvement in Yan's grappling and bottom game. I thought the concerns about Yan on bottom were a little overstated coming into the fight, but even then, she looked much improved positionally and was able to stay safe. I thought that people assuming Yan not being able to stop takedowns against against Carla Esparza meant she would be taken down and dominated by Dern was just stretch. Esparza is consistently one of the most underrated fighters in the UFC and I am at fault of that sometimes myself. Yan getting stuck on bottom was a huge talking point during the week and I think her being able to avoid submissions and generally stay standing not only improved her stock, but indirectly improved Carla's. Yan was taken down a couple of times and was able to largely stay out of compromising positions. In the final round, Dern took her down early and she was able to defend submissions for around 4 minutes or so. Yan even stayed in Dern's guard for a few short stretches and looked just fine there. I feel like she's not getting the credit for the win because everyone is just dismissing Dern as a fighter in general now and that isn't right. Yan Xiaonan just won a big fight against a good opponent and is now right back into the top 5 mix.
Xiaonan is caught in between a little bit. She's inside the top 5 now, but she had lost her last two in a row before this one. With losses to current champion Carla Esparza and Marina Rodriguez, she's going to need at least one more win before she truly enters the title conversation again. With Rodriguez booked against Amanda Lemos in a couple of months and Esparza defending her title against Zhang Weili pretty soon as well, those options are out. The only options that really make sense, at least in my opinion, are Rose Namajunas and Jessica Andrade. I don't know that I really have a preference for which one happens in terms of entertainment and I'm really not sure which one is more likely either. Andrade has been moving around weight classes and it isn't really clear where she wants to fight or where the UFC prefers her to fight. At the same time, Rose is very hard to predict and her long term commitment to competition has always been a bit wishy washy. We haven't see Rose since she lost her title and really haven't even heard from her outside of the cameo she made in the very bizarre interview Pat Barry did on The MMA Hour. I still go back to that interview every once in awhile because it really doesn't seem like real life. I just don't really know how interested Rose is in fights that aren't for the belt and she's so popular that she may just be able to sit out and get put back into a title fight at some point, especially if Weili defeats Esparza. I guess that means an Andrade fight is more likely, even though her last fight was going to be at flyweight before it was cancelled. I would find it weird if she ended up fighting someone lower like Tecia Torres or Amanda Ribas, but I suppose they're possibilities. I think Andrade or Rose is the way to go with Andrade probably being the more likely of the two.
There's been a lot of pinballing on Mackenzie Dern throughout her career and that continued after this loss. I think we all need to relax a bit and take a deep breath before reacting to this loss. I think everyone is reacting a bit more strongly to this loss because everyone was expecting her to just dominate from top position like Esparza did, which I already said I thought was a misplaced expectation. Now all of the sudden people are acting like both of these women are mediocre regional fighters and it's just not a great look. I saw someone tweet "She lost to Yan Xiaonan" with the laughing emojis as if Yan is some unheard of unknown commodity. These same people acting like Dern is a fraud were probably the same people who had her pegged as a future champion a few years ago. I just feel bad for her because it feels like the reaction to this fight has been more visceral than normal. Everyone who loses a fight gets absolutely roasted on Twitter like they're the worst fighter who's every lived until the next fight ends, but this seems a lot worse for some reason. In any case, it wasn't a particularly great night for Dern. Once again, she struggled to get takedowns, which is what has plagued Dern in all of her losses. If she can't get the fight down, she is often just behind on the feet, which was the case here against a striker of Xiaonan's caliber. Dern's striking has improved since we first saw her, but she just isn't going to be able to hold up against the best strikers in the division like Xiaonan, Rodriguez, Weili, or Rose without being able to get takedowns more consistently. Dern seemingly has the heart and toughness (which people questioned not all that long ago) to slug it out with someone on the feet, but she's just behind on technical ability and hand speed. I think maybe there is more outrage amongst fans because the issue with Dern's wrestling again as it has been for so long now. Everyone who knows even a little bit about MMA knows Dern's wrestling is the key to unlocking her full potential, but she hasn't really made much notable progress there. She still gets in on attempts and doesn't seem to have the urgency to finish them and ends up shooting from too far out once she gets desperate. Even against someone like Yan who isn't the best wrestler, Dern just seemed behind. Yan was able to work to better positions once Dern was in on the shots and had good enough balance to not just tip over on some of the single leg attempts. With that said, Dern did land a couple of takedowns and had good position in two different rounds and really didn't get all that close to a submission other than a hail mary armbar attempt with seconds remaining in the fight. She got to some good positions, but just nothing really ever seemed all that threatening. I won't directly question someone with the BJJ prowess of Mackenzie Dern, but not even attempting rear naked chokes from Yan's back was a curious decision. Luke at @SWR_Betting tweeted after the fight something to the extent of "we really need to reconsider just how dangerous Mackenzie Dern is on the ground" and I 100% agree (that isn't a direct quote, just paraphrasing). A lot of people, myself included, have been characterizing Dern as the type of grappler where if she gets one takedown, the fight is effectively over. I think we collectively need to back off of that a bit as that just doesn't seem to be the case, at least against some of these top 6 level opponents. She's had dominant position against two fighters in Yan Xioanan and Marina Rodriguez who are considered to be average grapplers at best in her last few fights and she really never got that close to a submission. I think we need to recognize that Dern isn't just lightyears better than some of these other top fighters in the division on the mat and that they actually can stay safe against her there. That isn't to say Dern isn't good or even elite on the mat, but she isn't the automatic submission that a lot of people have characterized her as. At the end of the day, it was a disappointing result for Dern and had to be particularly frustrating because of how it played out. Dern isn't a bad fighter by any means. She has great BJJ, proven toughness, and has improved her striking dramatically, but her inability to get takedowns with any level of consistency will prevent her from stringing together long winning streaks at the highest level.
When it comes to Mckenzie Dern's next fight, she finds herself in one of those Alexander Volkov and Dan Ige type situations where they just slightly fluctuate around the same part of the rankings. This results in her being surrounded by largely the same group of fighters and opponents that she's already fought. Amanda Lemos is directly beneath her and as I mentioned earlier, she's already booked against Marina Rodriguez. Under her are Tecia Torres, Amanda Ribas, and Virna Jandiroba, all of whom Dern has already competed against. That sort of leaves us with Angela Hill, Emily Ducote, and Michelle Waterson-Gomez. Giving Ducote that level of fight in just her second UFC fight would be pretty aggressive and don't really foresee that. Waterson-Gomez is coming off of a loss to Lemos where she was looking pretty decent up until Lemos snatched up the guillotine, so maybe that is the way to go. Hill is coming off of a win and is always reliable to put on a respectable performance, so I wouldn't have a problem with that fight in theory, but it would be a pretty big jump for Hill up in the rankings after only a single win after a longer losing streak. Now that I think more about it, Dern probably will take some time off, so if Rodriguez beats Lemos, then Lemos would probably make the most sense. I feel like that would probably be the most likely fight if Rodriguez does pick up the win in that fight. There is also the possibility that she gets Andrade or Rose, but those would be really hard to justify at this point. I think either Hill or Waterson-Gomez are the fights that I would most like to see, but if Marina Rodriguez were to defeat Amanda Lemos, I think Lemos vs Dern is the most likely outcome. If Lemos pulls the upset or if the UFC just decides they don't want to make that fight, then I think I prefer the Hill over Waterson-Gomez, but I would be happy with either.
I didn't really talk about the fact that Dern could have earned a 10-8 in the final round and I'm not really that passionate about it to be honest. If another judge gives Dern the 10-8 in the fifth, it becomes a draw instead of a loss, but it just didn't really feel like a 10-8 to me. Dern dominated the round in a sense that Yan didn't really get to do much offensively, but she didn't really dominate in a way where it felt like she was going to finish the fight. She landed a lot of short punches, but they really didn't seem to do much damage and she never got that close to a submission. Because there was no real legitimate finishing sequence, at least to me, I'm ok with the 10-9.
What did you guys think? How did you score the fight? What did you think of the performances? Who do you want to see them both fight next? Leave any and all thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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