Rose Namajunas: Mackenzie Dern’s ‘Lack of Effort’ to Make Weight Deserves Harsher Punishment

On Saturday night at UFC 224 in Rio de Janeiro, rising Ultimate Fighting Championship strawweight Mackenzie Dern scored an impressive win over Amanda Bobby Cooper. Dern weighed in for the bout seven pounds over the strawweight limit, which understandably drew heavy criticism from fellow fighters.

UFC strawweight champion Rose Namajunas, along with her fiancee and trainer Pat Barry, were featured on Tuesday’s episode of the “UFC Unfiltered” podcast and voiced her opinion on Dern’s weight cut:

“That right hand she threw looked like it was a big ol’ girl throwing that punch,” said Namajunas. “That was a heavy, heavy punch, and that was from a heavy girl. And not to say that that’s not her punch and that’s not a dangerous punch, but maybe that would’ve been a little bit different had she made weight or at least gave an effort to make weight.”

While Dern has been on the receiving end of a lot of criticism, Namajunas believes there should be more consequences for fighters in place who blatantly miss weight in a sport where any advantage can mean the difference between a win and a loss:

“I don’t know what kind of consequences…but I hope that it’s something that’s like…come on, girl.” Namajunas paused, apparently still struggling to find the words before repeating in a flabbergasted tone, “Come on, girl.

“I mean you didn’t even have abs, girl, like, come on.”

Namajunas did however praise the jiu-jitsu world champion and stated that she would like to test her ground skills with someone like Dern in the future, provided she can get her weight issues sorted:

“I thought, other than the weight issue, I thought she looked great. I always wanted to test my jiu-jitsu against [someone at Dern’s level] … that would be awesome. She’s just got to get her sh*t together, and maybe that might be down the road.”