Chael Sonnen really wants to see Mackenzie Dern succeed, though he has no idea why.
Nearly six years removed from their first-ever meeting inside the Octagon, Dern evened the series against strawweight rival Amanda Ribas, scoring a third-round submission victory via armbar to move her UFC record to 10-5.
Over the years, Dern has emerged as a favorite among fight fans. Unfortunately, the BJJ sensation has done little to capitalize on her popularity — something Sonnen says goes back to before her move into mixed martial arts.
“I could not go back over Mackenzie’s career and hand her one compliment on anything she’s done from an entertainment aspect,” Sonnen said on Good Guy/Bad Guy with Daniel Cormier. “I couldn’t tell you one time she had a microphone in her hand and turned it into a pipe bomb. I could not tell you one opportunity that she pushed everybody else aside and came and got it for herself.
“I could tell you before she made her UFC debut, a guy named Chael Sonnen called her to do a pure grappling match, straight up jiu-jitsu against somebody called Miesha Tate, who was one of the biggest names in the whole sport, and there was no amount of money to get Mackenzie on the airplane to do the match. Her reasoning? She wants to focus on MMA. So, I’m attempting to explain to her that if you want to break into MMA, this is Miesha Tate, come get your money, and she never did it” (h/t MMA Junkie).
Chael Sonnen insists Mackenzie Dern is ‘Unaware of the sport’
With an impressive showing against Ribas and four Fight Night headliners in her rearview, Dern had an opportunity to get on the mic and shoot her shot. Instead, Dern remained humble and stressed that she was in no rush to challenge for a world title.
In Sonnen’s eyes, it was a massively missed opportunity and further evidence that Dern is simply “unaware of the sport.”
“She decides she needs to get better at jiu-jitsu, she leaves her father, Wellington ‘Megaton,’ one of the biggest stars there is, goes out with Jason Parillo in California and starts hitting mitts which got her nowhere than missing punches and blocking shots with her face,” Sonnen added. “I’ve never seen Mackenzie get it right. Everyone likes her, myself included, everyone seems to be rooting for her for reasons I really can’t explain to you, myself included.
“She looks like she does really care about this sport. She talks about some of her hardships and things outside the ring which do compel you very much to her, but as far as understanding what makes dollars has got to make sense, she doesn’t know what any of those words mean. I’ve never seen a second-generation athlete so unaware of the sport that’s going on around them.”
