The Ultimate Fighting Championship on Saturday returns with UFC Fight Night 211 in Las Vegas—a typical Apex card that is low on star power but high on action potential. Women’s strawweight contenders Mackenzie Dern and Xiaonan Yan look for their biggest wins to date in a well-matched main event, while the co-headliner sees Randy Brown seek out a long-awaited breakthrough against Francisco Trinaldo. Beyond that, it is all about possible violence at 155 pounds and below, with four fights that match varying levels of aggression. The highlights include ranked featherweight Sodiq Yusuff, albeit against a newcomer in Don Shainis, and the long-overdue returns of lightweight prospect Mike Davis against the striking-happy Viacheslav Borshchev.
Women’s Strawweight
#5 WSW | Mackenzie Dern (12-2, 7-2 UFC) vs. #6 WSW | Xiaonan Yan (15-3, 6-2 UFC)ODDS: Dern (-225), Yan (+190)
It speaks to Dern’s talent that while she appears on the verge of a strawweight title shot, it still feels like she is leaving a lot of success on the table. Essentially raised on the mats from birth, Dern was one of the most decorated female grapplers in the world before transitioning to mixed martial arts, at which point she immediately became a blue-chip prospect. Indeed, Dern showed enough submission wizardry in her regional career that the UFC picked her up within two years of her pro debut. However, getting to those grappling skills can often be a bit of an adventure, particularly since Dern has yet to hone her offensive wrestling. She still finds her moments, with a 2021 win over Nina Nunes sticking out as particularly clean, but as Dern has found her way near the top of the sport’s deepest female division, there have been a lot of ugly moments where she has pressed for a takedown that never comes. Fortunately for Dern, she is comfortable in those grimy affairs and can hold her own in a brawl. While she is still not the prettiest technically even after some obvious improvements, her combination of athleticism, power and toughness can make her an absolute terror when she blitzes her opponents, particularly with the threat of her grappling serving as a sort of defense. Since that career-best showing against Nunes, Dern’s last two performances have provided a mixed bag. She seemed frustrated and flat after her inability to find consistent success in a main event loss to Marina Rodriguez, and while she pressed the action more against Tecia Torres, it was a nip-tuck decision that Dern was a bit lucky to win. Still on the right side of 30 and only six years into her pro career, there is still the potential for things to click to the point that she becomes an absolute menace at 115 pounds. Maybe that begins to unfold against Yan.
While Dern came to the UFC as a hyped addition, Yan’s rise started a bit under the radar. One of a few prospects picked up for the promotion’s 2017 debut in mainland China, Yan was essentially unproven as a pro fighter but quickly affirmed her talent with win after win. However, it was her fourth UFC fight, a 2019 victory over Angela Hill, that put Yan on the map as a potential contender to watch—a reputation that only got stronger after an absolute shellacking of Karolina Kowalkiewicz and a clear decision victory over Claudia Gadelha, both former title challengers. Yan was riding a clear wave of momentum after the Gadelha win, but the nature of her May 2021 loss to Carla Esparza was bad enough to throw her entire resume into question. By that point, neither the Kowalkiewicz nor the Gadelha victory had aged particularly well—Kowalkiewicz nearly slid out of the UFC until a recent resurgence, while Gadelha suffered a career-ending concussion in their fight that obviously affected her performance. Against the most persistent wrestling challenge of her career in Esparza, Yan’s aggressive and volume-heavy striking game was essentially neutralized, with Yan constantly winding up on her back and showing some terrible instincts prior to getting stopped in the second round. Still, Yan rebounded when she needed to the most, doing everything except actually getting the win in a March bout against Rodriguez. Yan showed a much more mindful approach in a bout where she could not afford to simply march in and trade, even mixing in some offensive wrestling of her own. Frankly, it was a performance that likely deserved the victory, so Yan’s stock suffered little despite the result. A win here would essentially wash away any damage that the loss caused.
Yan’s performance against Rodriguez does make this a much harder fight to call. Prior to that bout, this likely would have been a tough ask for the Chinese standout. While Dern’s wrestling attack is not the strongest, Yan’s tendency to stand in front of her opponent and worry about the rest later figured to give the decorated grappler more than enough opportunities to get this fight to the mat in the early going. However, with Yan showing more of an ability to set range against a much better striker than Dern, her obvious path to victory becomes much more possible. Dern did flag over the course of five rounds against Rodriguez, so it is easy to see Yan’s willingness to set a pace taking over the championship rounds handily, provided she can keep the fight standing. This fight essentially comes down to Yan’s ability to stop some early takedowns. She did well to outlast Gadelha past a certain point. Even so, given what Yan showed on the ground against Esparza, Dern is also much likelier to turn Gadelha’s wrestling-focused early success into an outright submission finish. This is a well-made fight that could turn into a clear Yan win by the end of 25 minutes. Still, the bet is that Dern can find one clear round of grappling success as she often does and, more importantly, that Yan does not have the chops to survive. The pick is Dern via second-round submission.
Jump To »
Brown vs. Trinaldo
Barcelos vs. Jones
Yusuff vs. Shainis
Castaneda vs. Santos
Davis vs. Borshchev
The Prelims