UFC 224: Mackenzie Dern vs Amanda Cooper set for May 12 in Brazil

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is about to kill two birds with one stone.

Not only will the promotion allow Mackenzie Dern to speak in her native adopted tongue, it will also provide her the opportunity to make a statement inside the Octagon as part of the upcoming UFC 224 pay-per-view (PPV) event on May 12 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

That’s according to MMA Brasil.

To be fair, the grappling phenom made a statement in her UFC debut, but “I squeaked by Ashley Yoder via split decision” was probably not the statement Dern had in mind.

Live by the hype, die by the hype.

Hoping to play spoiler is strawweight veteran Amanda Cooper (3-3), who sent Angela Magana to the unemployment line after the curtain fell at UFC 218 last December. “ABC” is now 2-2 inside the Octagon after cutting her teeth on The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 23.

“I’ve been waiting for this fight from the moment I heard her name,” Cooper wrote on Instagram. “I’ve been training for this fight, I’ve been training for McKenzie and I’ve been training to beat her longer than you can imagine. I’m going to derail the hype train on May 12th.”

UFC 224 will be headlined by the women’s bantamweight title fight pitting reigning 135-pound queenpin Amanda Nunes opposite rough-and-tumble contender Raquel Pennington. Elsewhere on the card, Vitor Belfort and Lyoto Machida will hook ‘em up for middleweight bragging rights.

See the latest UFC 224 fight card here.