Mackenzie Dern successfully defended her UFC women’s strawweight title against Gillian Robertson at UFC 330, closing out a build-up that had grown increasingly heated between the two.
But in the aftermath, attention shifted to comments made by Robertson’s coach, Din Thomas, who told the broadcast he was retiring from cornering, saying he had “taken Gillian as far as I think she can go.” Thomas later apologized for the remarks on his own show, calling them “irresponsible” and “despicable.”
Dern addressed the situation directly, and made clear she did not think Thomas’ apology addressed the substance of what he said.
“I think that’s pretty, that’s tough, you know what I mean? That’s tough to say. I don’t even know why that’s supposed to be something public. I feel like that could be something just resolved between the two of them. I don’t think that’s something that needs to be even announced,” Dern said.
“So, the reason for that, I mean, he did come back and say sorry. But it doesn’t seem like he changes really what he thought, what he thinks, you know. I mean, he explained he’s sorry about saying that in public, but it doesn’t seem that he changed about how he thinks that she can’t go farther than that, or maybe that he doesn’t think that he can provide for her what she needs to go farther than that.”
“So that’s definitely more about him than her potentially, and she came to fig ht for a title and, like he said, broke records and things like that, and she doesn’t come from any type of background like I do, since I’m 3 years old training. So she really got far and she is only 31, you know what I mean? So she can accomplish so much. So yeah, I don’t think it was cool, but not my business.”
Dern also pushed back on the idea that Robertson has hit her ceiling as an athlete, pointing to her opponent’s recent run of matches.
“I definitely think she can grow more. I do think that her last few fig hts were against a lot of figh ters that were like with losing records and things like that. So I do think that she might have had this false, I don’t know, this false like real, like of what her reality was,” Dern said.
She continued, “I think that this loss will definitely improve her and I think she’ll improve very quickly, and I think her next fig ht she’ll already make the little adjustments that I think she needs that will make her potentially another fig ht for the title again one day.”
Despite the tension that built between them, Dern said she holds nothing against Robertson personally, noting the two shook hands after the bout and that she felt Robertson deserves credit rather than blame for how the situation played out.
