Mackenzie Dern wants to tap out submission queen at UFC 330

Women's strawweight champion Mackenzie Dern puts her title on the line for the first time in the UFC 330 co-main event on Aug. 15 against No. 4 ranked Gillian Robertson.

>Stylistically, it's a matchup between two submissions specialists. Dern is a former jiu-jitsu world champion with half of her mixed marital arts wins have come by of submission. Robertson holds the record for the most submission wins in UFC women's history.

> If Dern has her way, she'll defeat Robertson via submission in Philadelphia's Xfinity Mobile Arena.

>"I mean, I would definitely like to submit her just because she's kind of been someone who's been talking so much about like submissions and like she's kind of been like comparing herself a lot to me even before I was a champion, you know? Just like that she has more submissions than me and stuff like that," Dern said on The Ariel Helwani Show.

>"And she's never really been someone that I've paid attention to. I don't know if it was just because she wasn't in the 125-pound division or what. So, I mean definitely the fact that she like has this whole thing about being like the best submission artist and stuff like that and she's kind of like, I don't know. I just felt like she's kind of like throwing a little bit of shade or just kind of putting down all my accomplishments and everything in jiu-jitsu like as if I'm not this good jiu-jitsu fighter, you know? So I would definitely like to be able to submit her because that would be amazing. And I'm trying to obviously get my submissions up and have like the most submissions and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean the goal we're just training so hard to beat her every single place and so she has no outs, you know?"

>Robertson has been calling for a fight against Dern since before Dern had UFC gold around her waist. The Brazilian-American believes Robertson has something against her and questioned the Canadian's submission resume.

>"I mean, who has been calling me out for before I was even the champion? She had something about me. I don't know if it was she didn't like what people were saying about submissions or if she felt that, but it was never anything I said against her. But I definitely feel like she's been wanting to fight me for a while. I don 't know why," said the champion.

>"I try not to take things personally, you know, especially being the champion because now I'm like, 'Oh yeah, everyone calls you out because they want to be the champion.' But she's someone who's been kind of talking about me even before I was the champion. So, I'm really excited to get this fight in and kind of just let her feel how I am, you know, because she doesn't expect that I'm that good, I guess."

>"It would be super crazy if she didn't respect me," continued Dern. "I know she has these submissions but I've never seen her at like any IBGF tournaments. I've never seen her at ADCC. I've never seen her at any of like World Pro tournaments. I mean, I've competed my whole life."