Dern has now been in the UFC for 6 years and has 13 fights. She's significantly improved her strength and conditioning and for a little while her striking was improving, but I understand her striking coach (Parillo) and her stopped working together. As it stands she has some of the worst striking defense in the entire UFC. She keeps her chin a mile in the air and rushes forward with zero defense (hands low) whatsoever. Even horrible strikers like Jake Shields were better than her at avoiding huge damage on the feet.
It's a total shame because this is entirely fixable for Dern. She has the ability to throw with legitimate power for WMMA, she isn't uber stiff, but she just has no clue how to strike properly. Yes, she has fantastic BJJ, but it isn't good enough to get instant subs like a prime Kabib, her only subs in the UFC have been against low tier opposition. And her takedowns are also not fantastic. So yeah, even if she gets it to the ground, which she might not, she's probably just holding somewhere there until the bell.
If she could get decent enough striking to just avoid heavy damage on the feet and to work her way inside, she'd be a menace. Instead she's running around like Matt Riddell or Ryan Hall. It's a total waste of her career. She should be capable, in a WMMA setting, of fighting like a Charles Oliveira or a Fabricio Werdum, where her ground game helps push her striking.
Send her to a striking heavy gym, any gym. She can't keep going out there like that and expect to win with her BJJ alone or from winging bombs recklessly. This is one of the most puzzling things in MMA to me as the answer is so obvious, but it feels like she isn't even trying to fix the problem.
The welterweight belt is the only one to have never been hold by a Brazilian
