Mackenzie Dern is officially set to defend her UFC strawweight title against Gillian Robertson in the co-main event of UFC 330 on Aug. 15 at the Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia.
Dern, the 115-pound champion with a 16-5 MMA record and 11-5 in the UFC, had anticipated a different name for her next assignment after Zhang Weili vacated the belt to pursue flyweight gold.
"I don't know. I don't know. They were talking about Weili. They had mentioned Macau, and the White House, New Jersey. I'm not sure what happened or what's going on. They came back with Gillian Robertson, I think after her win against Amanda Lemos, that was maybe April. So yeah, it's August 15," Dern said.
Despite missing out on Zhang for now, Dern insisted she had no frustration with the matchup shift. "No, no, I definitely wasn't disappointed," she said, later adding that a future clash with Zhang would be "an honor" and that she is "excited" to continue improving ahead of a potential meeting.
Dern has also pushed back on criticism of her title reign stemming from Zhang vacating the belt rather than losing it. "No, because I don't see any champions saying that," Dern said. "The people who are saying that obviously have never been a champion in fighting. Probably a school race in high school or something like that, maybe the max, but nobody that's been a UFC champion has said anything like that or anybody that's really accomplished something. There's only so much you can do. It doesn't really bother me."
Robertson enters the title fight with a 17-8 MMA record and 14-6 in the UFC.
