Dern Predicted UFC 312 Strawweight Results
Before the February 2025 strawweight title bout, Mackenzie Dern picked champion Zhang Weili to defeat Tatiana Suarez, while admitting she hoped Suarez would win. The result settled both sides of Dern’s forecast: Weili retained the championship by unanimous decision, with scorecards of 49–46, 49–46 and 49–45.
Dern shared her view in a January interview on The Ariel Helwani Show, ahead of her own rematch with Amanda Ribas. The preview was clear: she considered Weili the likely winner, but preferred a Suarez upset because a fellow grappler would be a more appealing matchup for her. Those were two different judgments—a prediction about the fight and a personal rooting interest.
Dern praised Weili’s continued development, pointing to her takedowns against Amanda Lemos and Yan Xiaonan and to her five-round championship rivalry with Joanna Jędrzejczyk. At the same time, Dern said a Suarez victory could shake up the division and give her a grappling matchup she wanted to test herself against. MMA Fighting’s contemporaneous report captured Dern’s preference for facing Suarez, while Yahoo Sports’ account of her prediction recorded her expectation that Weili would win.
Dern had momentum of her own. On January 11, four weeks before the title bout, she submitted Ribas with an armbar at 4:56 of the third round in their Las Vegas main event, avenging a 2019 loss. It was a notable turnaround, but her comments about Weili and Suarez were made before that performance and before the championship fight.
Weili then controlled the five-round contest and retained her belt on all three judges’ cards. The official event results list the unanimous decision and scores. Dern’s call on the winner was right; her hope for a new champion was not. The bout also gave the division a concrete answer to the matchup question she had raised: Suarez’s wrestling did not prevent Weili from earning a clear decision.
