RIO DE JANEIRO – Mackenzie Dern spoke out this week about being tired of being asked about her weight cuts.

“I think more and more people will get used to me making the weight,” Dern told MMAjunkie at a media day ahead of UFC 224. “(At UFC 222), I was the last one to weigh in. So, the drama, the people like to gossip a little bit … But hopefully it will pass.”

But Dern probably can’t expect that weight-cutting drama talk to pass any time soon. Today, Dern (6-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) came in at 123 pounds for her strawweight fight against Amanda Cooper (3-3 MMA, 2-2 UFC), seven pounds over the non-title limit and closer to flyweight than strawweight.

Cooper weighed in about 30 minutes after Dern and was the last fighter to step on the scale today. She was 116 pounds and on target for the strawweight non-title limit.

“The fight will happen,” CABMMA Executive Director Cristiano Sampaio told MMAjunkie. “Amanda has accepted. Mackenzie went through the medicals and she’s fit, so the fight will happen. If (Dern had weighed in at) the next division, we wouldn’t allow the fight. She was 123, so she barely made it (under flyweight).”

Dern will forfeit 30 percent of her purse, all of which will go to Cooper. By policy, Sampaio said, 10 percent typically goes to the Brazilian commission. The UFC, he said, then would decide how much of Dern’s purse she will give up to Cooper. But in this case, the commission said its 10 percent cut would go to Cooper, as well.

Dern missed the strawweight limit twice in five fights before getting to the UFC. At Legacy FC 61, she was heavy for a fight against Montana Stewart. And at LFA 6, she was heavy for a fight against Katherine Roy. Her next time out, at LFA 24, she fought at flyweight before returning to strawweight under the Invicta FC banner in late 2017.

For her first fight in the UFC earlier this year, she made the strawweight limit. This week, she said UFC officials reached out to her to ask about her weight cut.

“When I got here, I was OK, but the people in the UFC, they were a little bit worried,” Dern said. “They called me like, ‘Are you OK?’ I said, ‘Don’t worry you guys, it’s OK. I went and ran and everything came off, so it’s perfect.’

“… I’m on my seventh fight now and I feel like, ‘Man, how long are they going to keep asking me about my weight?’ Every interview, even to my opponent, they ask, ‘You think she’s going to make weight?’ I said, ‘Man, they have so many things they can ask about, they can ask about my father, the fight, my opponent, so many things. They’re always going to ask me about my weight?’”

Dern is a decorated grappler who has competed between 55 kilograms (121 pounds) and 64 kilograms (141 pounds) in jiu-jitsu tournaments, as well as in “absolute” open-weight divisions.

Today’s early weigh-ins took place at the UFC host hotel in Rio de Janeiro and preceded the ceremonial weigh-ins for the fans, which take place at 4 p.m. ET at Jeunesse Arena in Rio. The same venue hosts Saturday’s event, which has a main card on pay-per-view following prelims on FX and UFC Fight Pass.

For more on UFC 224, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.