LAS VEGAS – Prior to UFC Fight Night 232 on Saturday, Ailin Perez was allegedly involved in a scuffle with Joselyne Edwards.
Perez (9-2 MMA, 2-1 UFC) defeated Lucie Pudilova by unanimous decision in their bantamweight bout at the UFC Apex to close out an eventful week for the Brazilian.
Although she didn’t mention Edwards’ name, Perez claimed she was jumped by her fellow fighter at the UFC Performance Institute during fight week.
“Pretty much I’m someone just like everyone else,” Perez told MMA Junkie and other reporters through an interpreter at the UFC Fight Night 232 post-fight news conference. “I don’t have a problem personally with anyone. What I did was I stated my opinion online about the fight. I didn’t disrespect anyone, I didn’t talk about about anyone.
“But this irrelevant lady came up to me after I was opinionated about one of her fights, just talking about the performance that she did. And she came to assault me. She did assault me with the intention to make me pull out of my fight, but I’m sorry, she did not achieve it. I won and fought regardless of the assault that took place.”
Perez also claimed that it was her coach who peeled Edwards off her, thanking him for saving her fight against Pudilova.
“I want to thank my coach, who was there at the time of the assault because if it wasn’t for him, I would have had much worse injuries because he was able to take her off me when she was assaulting me,” Perez said. “And the fight probably would have been off if it wasn’t for my coach, who saved me.”
In a statement provided to MMA Mania, Edwards had a different side to the story. The Panamanian fighter claims it was Perez’s coach who instigated the physical fight.
“While we were fighting, her coach attacked me from behind,” Edwards said. “He was strangling me, so that Ailin would hit me. Her coach attacked me. I practically had to fight two of them. He did not protect anyone, he started the fight.
“He was the one who heated things so that the fight would take place, and then he attacked me and was strangling me. Later, when they had already separated me from Ailin, he was still strangling me and did not want to let me go. He never separated the fight, he attacked me while she attacked me.”
A third witness, notable MMA manager Alex Davis, told MMA Mania a detail that was left out by both sides.
“I was sitting on the large octagon inside of the PI looking at my phone when I heard yelling to my right,” Davis said. “When I approached the cage, I saw Ailin and her coach on top of Joselyn, so jumped in to break up the fight. When I went to help out and saw the male coach choking Joselyn with a rear-naked choke, and it was very deep – he was cranking on the choke.
“If the choke was held on for much longer, it would have been a terrible scene. I’m not sure if she was fully unconscious, but she was close. When I got the coach off of Joselyne, the coach was ranting and yelling, trying to continue to fight. I was trying to calm Joselyne down because she thought she was still fighting.”
Davis took to X to reveal that he was confronted by Perez’s coach after sharing his account of the story.
This is the truth from the point that I was involved. I just ran into Javier Oyarzabal at the event hotel. This guy confronted me with his group of friends trying to call me a liar, trying to scare me! You are a coward, you have no business being among us! I am told old to be…
— Alex Davis (@Alexdavismma) November 19, 2023
This is the truth from the point that I was involved. I just ran into Javier Oyarzabal at the event hotel. This guy confronted me with his group of friends trying to call me a liar, trying to scare me! You are a coward, you have no business being among us! I am told old to be fighting scumbags in hotel hallways! But fck you you asshole!!
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 232.
