A relatively rare occurrence in modern MMA, UFC 169 featured two championship fights at the top of the card. In the hours following bantamweight Renan Barao and featherweight Jose Aldo defending their respective titles, reports surfaced that more gruesome action took place in the stands. According to the original report, 36 year old Angel Pereira was arrested for multiple counts of aggravated assault and two weapons charges after stabbing two fellow members of the UFC 169 crowd.
Following our initial report of the news, an eyewitness to the violent incident, who requested to remain anonymous, reached out to Bloody Elbow. The witness had attempted to contact UFC president Dana White on Twitter, but was brushed off with a dismissive and somewhat perplexing response:
After receiving that response from White, the witness wanted to provide his account of what took place on February 1:
My wife bought me lower level seats to UFC169 as a Christmas gift. It was a night out for us without our 2 year old daughter. The night started off great. There was a cool vodka bar right above our seats with great drinks and food.
We then started watching the fights and I was making jokes like I normally do. The couple in front of me laughed at my jokes as well.
Things changed as (Pereira) came back from getting drinks. He started talking crazy to his girlfriend. “I got my n***az outside. I will kill everybody in this row. I’ll go to jail. I don’t care. You feel me!”
His girlfriend was burying her face in her hands with embarrassment. After hearing all that crazy talk, the two guys sitting next to them questioned him, “Are you really going to kill us?”
Next thing you know the boyfriend stood up and started yelling at them. The two guys got up out of their seats and then (Pereira) swung at them. All 3 started fighting with the girlfriend in the middle. Security ran down and grabbed the thug. That is when I noticed his girlfriend’s face was slashed open and one of the two guy’s hands was cut. They said he had a knife.
Then security took them all away and asked me to come and fill out a witness report. They were holding the stabber in a room and asked me to peek and verify it was him. I asked about the other guys and all they could tell me is that they were stabbed. They could not find the girlfriend because she took off. I was told they ended up finding the knife plus another weapon he had.
On my way back to my seat I noticed about 20 cops in SWAT gear within the vodka bar. Back at my seat my wife was shaken up and as you can tell it ruined the night.
The security sucked there. When we entered the arena they used the metal detector wand and when it went off in my jacket pocket, I said it was loose change. He didn’t ask to see it and just told me to go in. They didn’t check my legs with the wand either or my wife’s large handbag.
Neither Prudential Center Security nor Newark Police were available for comment by the time of publish. Bloody Elbow also reached out to the New Jersey State Athletic Commission who said they were not made aware of any incident in the crowd.
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