Exclusive: Amanda Cooper Says Mackenzie Dern has “No Wrestling” and Can’t Handle Her Power

Amanda Cooper is back in action is just a few short weeks at UFC 224, facing the undefeated Mackenzie Dern.

The TUF alum is heading to Dern’s home country of Brazil for UFC 224, but Cooper is coming off of a win over Angela Magana in her home state of Michigan at UFC 218.

“That night was probably the best night I’ve ever had…fight wise, I’ve been proud of fights before…proud of getting into the TUF house…proud of getting into the finale. I was nervous fighting in front of my hometown, I do better fighting out of state…out of the country I do better. I was really nervous for that fight, hometown and having everyone there. I hadn’t seen (Angela) Magana fight in a long time, so I didn’t know what I was getting into. Definitely with the crowd energy and the way I fought, I couldn’t have asked for anything better than what happened that day,” Cooper said in an exclusive interview with Fightful’s James Lynch.

Cooper has fought three fighters before who were undefeated like Dern at the time they stepped foot in the cage, but Cooper lost all three of those encounters.

Dern made her UFC debut back at UFC 222 and Cooper checked out that bout, but Amanda wasn’t very impressed with the Brazilian’s wrestling game.

“I watched it not knowing I was gonna fight her, so unbiasedly I watched it. I thought Ashley Yoder won, I was shocked because I thought Mackenzie would have won (easily). I thought for sure that Yoder won that fight, it was close and it could be argued like a lot of close fights. I thought Yoder won that and Mackenzie didn’t look good to me, her wrestling's not great ane even her wall work (is not great). Especially offensively…throwing the same strikes over and over again, everything's very telegraphed. She throws hard, but its so slow…I don’t even know how she hits people honestly. So I’m expecting a really good fight and obviously I’m gonna get the win,” says Cooper.

UFC 224 takes place on Saturday, May 12 from the Jeunesse Arena in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil with Amanda Nunes and Raquel Pennington headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.