Nina Ansaroff and Mackenzie Dern will square off this coming Saturday in a must-watch battle between two potential women’s strawweight title challengers. Ansaroff is currently top five in the division, while Dern is No. 11. Check out our preview of this showdown below.
Ansaroff will be making his way back into the Octagon for the first time in almost two years, as she last fought in June 2019 when she lost via unanimous decision to Tatiana Suarez at UFC 238. Ansaroff had to be away from the sport for a while as she had to give way to childbirth. But before her loss to Suarez, Ansaroff was having a nice momentum, racking up four wins in a row, all but one via unanimous decisions. Expect Ansaroff to avoid getting brought down to the mat against Dern. A striker, Ansaroff will look to use her stand-up skills to score a win here. She is averaging 4.81 strikes per minute and lands 47 percent of her significant strikes. Ansaroff’s takedown defense will be her friend against Dern. She is second among all active UFC women’s strawweight fighters with a 77.6 percent takedown defense
A talented jiu-jitsu fighter, Dern is on a roll once again. After suffering her first pro-MMA fight loss in October 2019 to Amanda Ribas (unanimous decision), Dern has put together three consecutive wins. She submitted Hannah Cifers and Randa Markos before scoring a unanimous decision to Virna Jandiroba back in December. Dern will definitely look to take Ansaroff to the ground, given her established elite skills there. Dern has six wins via submissions. In addition, she is second among all active women’s strawweight UFC fighters in terms of submissions per 15 minutes (2.23). If she is successful in her takedown attempts and forces the fight to be mostly fought on the mat, Dern should be able to do enough damage to at least impress the judges. She still has to be careful because Ansaroff has two submission wins, though the difference in their skills on the mat suggests that Dern wouldn’t have much problem grappling with her opponent on Saturday.
