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Look: UFC Champ Mackenzie Dern and Ring Girl Red Dela Cruz Hit the VMAs Red Carpet
Mackenzie Dern and Red Dela Cruz traded fight night for music night on Sunday, September 27, stepping onto the red carpet at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles. The UFC strawweight champion and Octagon girl were both photographed at the Peacock Theater before the show, then shared what the night meant to them online.
Dern wore a black dress with a plunging neckline and flexed for the cameras. She knows her way around a big entrance, though this one came without a walk to the cage. Dela Cruz also had her own red-carpet moment, with photographers capturing her arrival at the venue.
Mackenzie Dern and Red Dela Cruz at the VMAs
The pair’s posts made clear they were there to enjoy themselves. Dern called it a “fun girls night out” and explained why the VMAs felt like a good fit for her, even if fans usually see her in a very different setting. “Amazing night at the @vmas @mtv awards!!!! Music is such a huge part of my life, from fun times with my daughter to getting me ready for fights,” Dern wrote.
“I am super excited to have an amazing night! Congrats to all the winners! Fun girls night out” Dela Cruz kept her message shorter and more personal: “A little dream come true. Never imagined I’d be here, and I’m just so grateful for every moment that brought me here”
For Dern, the carpet appearance came a little over a month after her first successful defense of the UFC women’s strawweight title. She won the vacant belt by unanimous decision over Virna Jandiroba at UFC 321 on October 25, 2025, then beat Gillian Robertson by unanimous decision at UFC 330 in August. Sunday called for a different kind of posing: the red-carpet photos caught her flexing in her dress, with no gloves in sight.
Dela Cruz has spent years in the UFC spotlight from the other side of the Octagon. The Philippines-born model became the promotion’s first Filipina Octagon girl, according to the UFC. Her own account of her career says she made her UFC debut at a 2015 event in Manila. That makes her VMAs post easy to understand: the walk into a music awards show was a first she wanted to mark. It was a busy night around them.
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Snoop Dogg hosted the ceremony, which aired on CBS and MTV and streamed on Paramount+. Madonna finished with seven awards, including artist of the year. Dern offered her congratulations to the winners, but her post focused less on trophies than on having a night out with Dela Cruz.
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The red carpet put two familiar UFC faces among the musicians, actors and other guests arriving at the Peacock Theater. Dern had a title defense behind her; Dela Cruz had a milestone to celebrate. Their captions told the rest of the story: music, a girls’ night out and a trip to the VMAs that Dela Cruz had once struggled to imagine.