Mackenzie
Dern will step in for Tatiana
Suarez and square off against Amanda
Lemos at
UFC 298.
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The Orange County Register was first to report the
new strawweight booking. Suarez was forced to withdraw from the
event due to an “unspecified injury,” according to the report. UFC
298 takes place on Feb. 17 at the Honda Center in Anaheim,
California and is headlined by a featherweight championship clash
pitting Alexander
Volkanovski against Ilia
Topuria.
Dern, 30, split a pair of appearances in 2023. After taking a
unanimous verdict over Angela Hill
in the UFC Fight Night 223 headliner on May 20, the Brazilian
jiu-jitsu black belt suffered a second-round TKO defeat against
Jessica
Andrade in her last outing at UFC 295. Dern is 8-4 during her
promotional tenure, with other notable wins over the likes of
Tecia
Torres, Nina Nunes
and Virna
Jandiroba.
Lemos, meanwhile, came up short in a championship bid at UFC 292
this past August, when she lost a unanimous decision to reigning
strawweight queen Weili
Zhang. Prior to that defeat, the 36-year-old Brazilian had been
victorious in seven of her last eight Octagon appearances.
Suarez appeared primed to make a title run in 2024. She returned
from a lengthy hiatus last year, earning back-to-back submission
wins over Montana
De La Rosa and Andrade to establish herself as a person of
interest at 115 pounds.