Ahead of a rare one-week break, the Ultimate Fighting Championship will squeeze in UFC Fight Night 223 on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Some late shuffling left this card without a main event, and the promotion landed on a previously booked encounter between Mackenzie Dern and Angela Hill—a well-matched capper to the night’s affairs. The rest of the main draw is full of fights that could go either way, led by an intriguing co-headliner that sees middleweight prospect Edmen Shahbazyan look to continue his career reboot against an always-game Anthony Hernandez. Filling out the lineup, Emily Ducote and Lupita Godinez pair up in a clash of promising strawweights, while Joaquin Buckley drops to welterweight for an almost-certain banger with Andre Fialho. Finally, lightweight veterans Diego Ferreira and Michael Johnson try to recapture some momentum at 155 pounds.
Women’s Strawweights
#8 WSW | Mackenzie Dern (12-3, 7-3 UFC) vs. #14 WSW | Angela Hill (15-12, 10-12 UFC)ODDS: Dern (-170), Hill (+145)
There is a decent chance Dern will still find her way to title contention through talent and sheer persistence, but it has been a frustrating ride thus far. Dern was an elite prospect immediately upon making her professional debut in 2016, given that she is one of the most decorated female grapplers ever to transition to mixed martial arts. As such, it was not a shock when Dern made it to the UFC in short order, racking up a few wins before signing with the promotion in 2018, at which point she was fast-tracked for success. For the next few years, Dern won a lot more often than not—only Amanda Ribas neutralized her in her first seven UFC fights—but still mostly showed flashes of potential rather than having a true breakout. Dern has never quite honed her offensive wrestling enough to fully leverage her grappling skills, making her fights a bit of an adventure. However, thanks to that, she has been able to show off that she is tough as nails and a willing striker. Regarding that last point: While Dern packs an absolute wallop when she looks to throw down, her skills on the feet have mostly plateaued after some clear improvement a few years ago. That overall messiness has made it rough going now that Dern is consistently fighting the upper crust of the strawweight division. Her previous main events against Marina Rodriguez and Xiaonan Yan have seen her dominate entire rounds on the ground but still walk away with a decision loss, mostly since Dern has no reliable way to get to her best weapons. If one more aspect of Dern’s game ever fully clicks, be it as a striker or a wrestler, she will immediately become one of the most terrifying forces in the division, but for now, everyone is still left playing the waiting game for her to show some new wrinkles leading into this headliner against Hill.
Hill has become a stalwart of the UFC since returning to the promotion in 2017—an impressive rise for someone who was far from guaranteed to have success in the sport. Hill came to the UFC as part of “The Ultimate Fighter” in 2014, during which she was essentially thrown to the wolves. A converted kickboxer, Hill had all of one professional mixed martial arts fight prior to getting cast on the season, and after losing to Carla Esparza on the show, she quickly slid out of the UFC after two more tough pairings against Tecia Torres and Rose Namajunas. From there, Hill landed in Invicta Fighting Championships and proved to be a quick study against a more suitable level of competition, also gaining her reputation for taking fights whenever possible. Hill packed four fights into 2016, winning all four to earn Invicta’s strawweight title and punch her ticket for her UFC return the following year. Hill’s record has been a mixed bag in the years since, but she has essentially followed the Donald Cerrone path to notoriety by taking fight after fight, usually packing three or four into a calendar year, including a stretch of six fights in 11 months spanning 2019 and 2020. Hill has smoothed out her weaknesses through sheer experience. She no longer gets completely run over by the better wrestlers and grapplers that she faced and has become much more consistent with her cardio, but even as she has found her career-best form, she has hit a clear ceiling as someone who simply is not a physical force. With a finish rarely on the table and limited ability to control her opponents, Hill is often left needing to scrape together close to a perfect fight in order to take the scorecards from her opponents, which makes it all the more impressive that she was able to do just that in wins over Lupita Godinez and Emily Ducote in the back half of 2022. Dern figures to be a bit too much of an ask. While Hill has improved enough to not get blown out of the water, Dern’s persistence should be enough to control multiple rounds with her wrestling and grappling. Hill is obviously the much better striker, but there is still the ever-present risk that Dern can win a round simply by winging something that finds her chin and offsets everything else she throws in terms of effective offense. The pick is Dern via decision.
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Dern vs. Hill
Hernandez vs. Shahbazyan
Godinez vs. Ducote
Buckley vs. Fialho
Ferreira vs. Johnson
Borshchev vs. Hayisaer
The Prelims