Related: Mackenzie Dern Stays Undefeated at Fight to Win

There are few individuals on the current landscape of MMA with more buzz surrounding them than Mackenzie Dern.The jiu-jitsu phenom turned rising MMA prospect has garnered a tremendous amount of attention and excitement for the skills she's been able to transition into the cage. The sky appears to limit for the young grappling ace with her arrival to the UFC all but a foregone conclusion at this point.Dern has zero interest in being just another fighter on the sport's biggest stage. Like everything else she's ever committed to, Dern is angling to become the best to have ever done it, and it's that caliber of ambition that has always set her apart.Nevertheless, the 23-year-old Arizona native knows there is much work to be done and she's taking nothing in stride. Even coming off her recent victory over Katherine Roy at LFA 6 a few weeks back, Dern is far from satisfied. She got the win in a tough fight, but Dern's mission is to dominate, and she'll take her lessons as they come."Of course I am happy with one more win, but I am definitely not satisfied with my performance," Dern told FloCombat in an exclusive interview. "I am a jiu-jitsu girl so in a perfect world I would go in and could have submitted [her] in the first round and everything would be great, but instead it went all three rounds and mostly standing up."I am happy that I am gaining this experience, going all three rounds, having to use my stand-up game--I am happy that I was able to work on that, but our team at the [MMA] Lab strives for perfection, so I know I have so much to work on still."And while Dern may not be exactly satisfied with her performance against Roy, there were a few things she found suspicious about her opponent on fight night. Between rounds, Dern approached the referee and shared her belief Roy was greasing to stay out of trouble with Dern's submission game, and weeks after the fight, the rising star still holds to her guns something was off in the fight."I am a jiu-jitsu fighter. I fight and train with and without the gi my whole life, so I know what it feels like when a person is slippery from sweat or when it feels like they passed something," Dern said. "As soon as I took her down in the second round, I felt it was different, and that's why I decided to try more ground and pound instead of trying to submit. I didn't want to get too tired because she was extra slippery."I don't know what or why she was extra slippery, I just told the referee to check and he will make his own decision if she has something or not. I trust in his decision. I just explained what I felt, but I knew that if he thought she had passed something or not it wouldn't change anything. I was prepared to fight to win either way."One issue Dern will have to address in the immediate future is her ongoing battle with the scale in the lead up to the fight. In two of her three professional performances, she's come in on the North side of where she was initially aiming, and to that she's made zero excuses. There's been speculation the UFC will create a women's flyweight division in the near future, but Dern has her focus elsewhere.Dern sees her future as a strawweight and is confident she'll curb the process to make hitting the mark a much easier situation."I think strawweight is my weight class," Dern said. "I am small, not tall but I need to really get down on this cut and dedicate as much time as possible to it. There is no excuse, but this is a learning process and I really do believe that me mixing jiu-jitsu and MMA is a big obstacle on the weight issue, and this was one more reason why I know it's time to be 100 percent MMA, because weight can't be an issue."That would be pretty great if the UFC made that division, more girls and more great fights," she continued in regard to a potential flyweight division. "I would like after [winning] the belt in the strawweight division to go and win the belt in the flyweight division too. I think you can always keep creating more and more goals."While Dern still has goals to accomplish on the jiu-jitsu mats, she's also becoming aware of the focus needed to reach the heights she's striving to reach in the MMA world. The top levels of competition require full focus and unwavering commitment, and Dern is drawing close to a time where she can go all in on her career as a fighter."Maybe I could, if I wanted to be just one more girl in the strawweight division," Dern said. "Maybe I could get my weight cut on the right track, keep competing in some jiu-jitsu tournaments, and go into the UFC being able to win some fights with my jiu-jitsu, lose some fights, and have an 'okay' career."But to be the best at anything we have to give our 100 percent, and I don't want to just be one more in the UFC, I want to be the champion and the best champion, especially representing the jiu-jitsu community, so to do that I think the best choice will be to commit straight to MMA. I wish I could do both and be the best at both at the same time, but my time now is for MMA."With an incredible resume of accomplishments in the jiu-jitsu world and a growing list of achievements in MMA, Dern is quickly becoming a very visible star in both worlds. This sudden turn was on display during the World MMA Awards in Las Vegas where the young fighter was swarmed at every turn by an adoring public wanting pictures and autographs.While Dern is certainly used to receiving attention for her talents, the intensity and passion of the fans in her newest sport have taken some getting used to."I definitely feel the difference in the public that is following me," Dern said. "With MMA every little thing that I say or do is critiqued and the MMA public is way more aggressive. But it's good too. I know that the fans that are truly with me from the 'beginning' will be with me during this journey to be the champion during the ups and downs, so it definitely motivates me more to do my best. It's crazy to see how fast everything is going, but I enjoy to share my lifestyle with everyone all over the world!"With her perfect record intact and big things happening in all regards, Dern continues to set her goals to the highest marks. Rather than sit back and coast, the world-champion grappler plans on knocking out one big task after the next and make 2017 the biggest year of her young career."My plan is still to win the worlds the end of May and debut sometime in 2017 in the UFC, but I don't know how many fights before the UFC I still would want to do... only time will tell."