In a revealing podcast interview, UFC strawweight champion Mackenzie Dern opened up about the preferential treatment she received early in her mixed martial arts career—admitting that the UFC signed her years before she ever stepped into the Octagon and paid her while she competed in other organizations.
During her appearance on the ALÉM DO TATAME podcast, Dern disclosed details about her unprecedented entry into the world’s premier MMA promotion. At just 23 years old, after posting on Instagram about training MMA, UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby flew to Arizona to sign her personally. What happened next was extraordinary by industry standards.
“They had already hired me and I received money from the UFC without being in the UFC,”
Dern revealed.
“I competed in LFA, but they had the right to, they practically chose my matches, they had to approve everything.”
This arrangement gave Dern a safety net virtually unheard of for prospects. The UFC told her to try MMA and see if she liked it.
“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to keep going, then when you’re ready, you go into the UFC,”
she explained. The promotion was essentially investing in her potential while allowing her to develop skills in a lower-pressure environment.
Dern’s preferential treatment stemmed from her extraordinary jiu-jitsu pedigree. The daughter of legendary grappler Wellington ‘Megaton’ Dias, she had already conquered the jiu-jitsu world by 2015, defeating Gabi Garcia and winning every major title including the World Championship, Pan-American, European, Brazilian, and ADCC competitions. She was ranked number one across all weight classes—an unprecedented achievement.
The UFC saw in Dern what they had previously found with Ronda Rousey: a dominant grappler from another discipline who could bring legitimacy and crossover appeal to women’s MMA. With Rousey representing judo, Dern could become the face of jiu-jitsu in the UFC, representing the martial art that birthed the entire organization.
“I wanted to try to demonstrate jiu-jitsu, introduce jiu-jitsu to these people,”
Dern said about her motivation.
“If I can encourage one of these people to get into jiu-jitsu, okay? I think I can help our community in my own way.”
However, Dern acknowledged that this preferential treatment created tension.
“It caused a lot of jealousy between both men and women,”
she admitted. Other MMA stars questioned why she was earning money and receiving opportunities while they struggled.
“People were like, she’s earning this money for it and everyone else is working so hard.”
Dern also revealed she was kicked out from multiple MMA gyms because she couldn’t adapt to team environments, having grown up training privately with her father. The independence and freedom she enjoyed at her father’s academy didn’t translate well to traditional team gyms where other athletes relied on her for preparation.
Now 32 and a mother, Dern has carved out a successful UFC career with seven submission victories, chasing Charles Oliveira‘s record of 20. While she admits the “Dana White privilege” created controversy, she maintains the UFC simply recognized potential others couldn’t see. Looking back, she wouldn’t change the path that brought her to championship even if it meant taking the road less traveled—and fully funded.
