Zhang Weili came up second-best in her bid to take the flyweight title from Valentina Shevchenko last last year, and now her coach John Wood is eyeing a move back down to strawweight so she can reclaim her title from Mackenzie Dern.

“There’s obviously a clear cut path to go back and take that title from Mackenzie — no disrespect to Mackenzie. That’s Weili’s belt,” Wood said of the title that Dern won in October after Weili had vacated it.

“A lot of people looking at that and obviously that’s the fight to make. We’ll see what she wants to do.”

Wood’s comments leave open the possibility that Weili might want to remain at 125lbs instead, but as far as he’s concerned the loss to Shevchenko was ample evidence that she’s better of down at 115lbs.

“There’s weight classes for a reason and when you take two equally skilled fighters, the bigger, stronger one is sometimes going to have the advantage. I know what Weili’s capable of and everybody does. She’s the best strawweight we’ve ever seen. She’s amazing. That woman is an athlete and I’ve seen what she does in the gym. To have Valentina do that and be able to hold her down and do those things was impressive. There’s weight classes for a reason and sometimes you’ve got to find that out.”