Mackenzie Dern and Amanda Ribas will headline the first UFC Fight Night of 2025, as they meet in the women’s strawweight main event at the Apex Facility in Las Vegas on the morning of Sunday 12 January.
Dern (14-5) is looking to build momentum after a unanimous decision win over Loopy Godinez in her last fight in August 2024. The 31-year-old Arizona native had lost three of her previous four fights, but is hoping that a growing maturity in her approach pays dividends.
“Maturing is a hard thing to do,” she said. “Technique is something you can work on. You have someone to teach you but controlling your emotions and your feelings to not get caught up in that, in life and in your work, is something really hard to do. I feel like I finally got there, and I'm really excited to show that.”
Ribas (13-5), by contrast, is looking to bounce back from a unanimous decision loss in her last match, coming at the hands of Rose Namajunas in March of 2024. The 31-year-old Brazilian has alternated between wins and losses in her last seven fights, but has insisted that she gets her ruggedness in the Octagon from her family.
“My family is a warrior family,” she explained. “My mom and my dad, they come from a house with no structure. They are truly warriors, so I bring this for myself. I know I have all the structure they didn’t have, and I am a warrior because of them.”
Dern and Ribas will be meeting for the second time: their first UFC match was back in October 2019, with Ribas winning via unanimous decision.
The rest of the main card features a middleweight clash pitting Ghana’s Abdul Razak Alhassan against Cesar Almeida; Christian Rodriguez v Austin Bashi in the featherweight division; welterweight fights pitting Santiago Ponzinibbio against Carlston Harris and Punahele Soriano against Uros Medic; and a middleweight match between Chris Curtis and Roman Kopylov.
UFC FIGHT NIGHT: DERN VS. RIBAS – MAIN CARD
- Main event: Women’s strawweight: Mackenzie Dern v Amanda Ribas
- Middleweight: Chris Curtis v Roman Kopylov
- Middleweight: Cesar Almeida v Abdul Razak Alhassan
- Featherweight: Christian Rodriguez v Austin Bashi
- Welterweight: Santiago Ponzinibbio v Carlston Harris
- Welterweight: Punahele Soriano v Uros Medic