Mackenzie Dern is going to try to get back in the win column in her next fight against Angela Hill at UFC on ESPN+ 83 on May 13th, 2023. Both women are ranked in the top fifteen of the promotion’s strawweight rankings but their respective career trajectories are currently trending in different directions. Dern is one of the best female BJJ competitors of all time and was once regarded as a very promising MMA prospect, but she’s recently discovered that having the best Jiu-Jitsu in women’s MMA isn’t enough to see her to the top of the division.
Dern managed to put together an impressive 11-1 professional record and fight her way into the top five and earning her first ever main event fight against Marina Rodriguez at UFC on ESPN 54. Rodriguez threw a spanner in the works by winning a unanimous decision and sending her back down the rankings, but she quickly bounced back with a win over MMA veteran Tecia Torres. That earned Dern another main event fight against Yan Xiaonan but once again she was defeated over the course of five rounds, and her record fell to 12-3. This means that Dern will be coming into her fight with Hill eager to get back to her winning ways and resume her pursuit of the strawweight title.
Hill on the other hand is a veteran of women’s MMA and she made her UFC debut all the way back in 2014, having put together a 15-12 professional record against the best female competitors on the planet. As a BJJ purple belt Hill will have a clear disadvantage on the ground, but she’s always been more of a striker anyway. She went through a rough patch across 2020 and 2021 but has managed to win her last two fights in a row. A win against Dern would not only be the biggest win of Hill’s career but it would also propel her into the top ten of the strawweight division and give her a massive opportunity in her next outing.
The running order for UFC on ESPN+ 83 is unconfirmed as yet, but given that both Mackenzie Dern and Angela Hill are highly-ranked contenders in their division it’s a safe bet that they will be fighting on the main card and may potentially serve as the co-main event. The main event is currently set to be a light-heavyweight bout between Anthony Smith and Johnny Walker, while a number of other interesting fights will take place on the card like Jailton Almeida v Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Matt Brown v Court McGee.
