Mackenzie Dern vs. Gillian Robertson Odds
| Dern Odds | -205 |
| Robertson Odds | +170 |
| Over/Under | 3.5 (-220/+170) |
| Location | T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas, Nevada |
| Bout Time | 10:45 p.m. ET |
| TV/Streaming | Paramount+ |
| UFC 330 odds as of Saturday and via DraftKings. Bet on UFC 330 with our DraftKings promo code. | |
Check out the Mackenzie Dern vs. Gillian Robertson prediction for UFC 329 on Saturday, July 11, along with my betting preview and breakdown.
With former champion Zhang Weili still out of the 115lbs picture for now, Mackenzie Dern makes her first strawweight title defense this week against #4-ranked Gillian Robertson. Robertson brings a five-fight winning streak into this fight — though many of those have aged poorly, to put it mildly — and is an interesting stylistic clash for the grappling of Dern.
Can Dern keep her title and set up a potential super fight against Zhang, or will time with the belt be short lived?
Here's my Dern vs. Robertson pick and prediction.
Tale of the Tape
| Dern | Robertson | |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 16-5 | 17-8 |
| Avg. Fight Time | 14:10 | 10:20 |
| Height | 5'4" | 5'5" |
| Weight (pounds) | 115 lbs. | 115 lbs. |
| Reach (inches) | 63" | 63" |
| Stance | Orthodox | Orthodox |
| Date of birth | 03/24/1993 | 05/17/1995 |
| Sig Strikes Per Min | 3.47 | 2.71 |
| SS Accuracy | 41% | 48% |
| SS Absorbed Per Min | 3.93 | 2.86 |
| SS Defense | 51% | 56% |
| Take Down Avg | 0.93 | 2.76 |
| TD Acc | 18% | 40% |
| TD Def | 37% | 38% |
| Submission Avg | 1.1 | 0.9 |
From a big-picture standpoint, the first thing I look at when breaking down fights is which fighter has the edge in three categories: grappling, striking, and wrestling. For these purposes, "grappling" is what happens once a fight hits the mat, not how it gets there.
Two of these categories are very easy to handicap in this fight.
Dern is, at worst, a top-ten female BJJ player of all time, winning IBJJF world titles at black belt in both gi and no gi divisions, as well as an ADCC championship. She's trained since she could walk under the tutelage of her father, 7th degree coral belt Megaton Dias. She has a clear edge on the mat (at least in pure grappling exchanges) over not only Robertson, but any strawweight on the roster.
On the other hand, Dern's wrestling is impressively bad. With 30 years of time on the mat, it almost seems harder to remain as bad as she is at takedowns, but she's managed to do it. That extends to her defensive wrestling as well, though I'll give her a pass there — why defend takedowns when you want the fight to be on the mat anyway?
Robertson, on the other hand, is a solid BJJ black belt but a far cry from Dern in pure jiu-jitsu. However, she's a much better wrestler offensively, averaging nearly three times as many takedowns per 15 minutes with over double the accuracy. She also doesn't wrestle defensively especially well, though like Dern, some of that is likely due to a willingness to accept takedowns given her submission skills.
That leaves striking, which is the real question mark. Robertson is solidly average, with her aggression and willingness to exchange shots making up for her somewhat basic technique, though it's hard to get a read on her pure striking. The last time she had a fight without anyone landing a takedown was 2019, and every fight on her winning streak was on the ground for at least 50% of the duration (typically much more).
Dern has shown moments of striking success, but at times has looked completely lost. Which version of Dern's striking we get has mapped pretty neatly to her time with striking coach Jason Parillo, with whom she's reunited, as Dan Tom mentioned on our latest UFC betting preview:
Still, Even at her best, the ceiling for Dern has been narrowly out landing opponents on the feet while absorbing a fairly high rate of strikes from her opponents. As an example, she absorbed 106 significant strikes over five rounds from Virna Jandiroba, whose career high to that point was 63 — which came in the first meeting between Dern and Jandiroba.
An aggressive, athletic Robertson might be enough to overwhelm Dern standing, and if Robertson doesn't want this fight to hit the ground, it won't. What's more likely is a fairly competitive striking matchup where Robertson eventually mixes in some takedowns. Then the question becomes whether she can stay on top and avoid submissions long enough to win rounds, which is a big ask against Dern.
Dern vs. Robertson Pick, Prediction
In my Luck Ratings piece on Monday, I discussed Robertson as a potentially undervalued option. My intuition that the public interest on Dern would push the line wider turned out to be entirely wrong, however.
As such, I'm of two minds. Every sharp MMA bettor I know except for me seems to be on the current champion, but the line has gone the opposite direction, so somebody must be betting on Robertson at a heavy clip. While confirmation bias that I'm potentially correct in backing Robertson is nice, it also means I'm forced to take a slightly worse line than had I trusted my gut on Monday.
With all that said, I'm going with my initial reaction and officially betting on Robertson, whose best line at the time of writing is +170 at Caesars. However, I'm keeping it to a half-unit play, in hopes that some Saturday parlay action gets us a better price closer to fight time.
Billy's Picks: Gillian Robertson +180 (Caesars)
