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Ailin Perez was sporting a black eye even before her UFC bout this Saturday, and apparently it came from a nasty brawl at the UFC Performance Institute just prior to the event.
Joselyne Edwards, Ailin Perez and her coach reportedly brawled at UFC PI
As fans and pundits noticed Ailin Perez’s black eye even before her UFC fight, reports began to surface on a prior brawl between two UFC fighters and a coach. Joselyne Edwards was named as the one who supposedly caused the damage to her eye, in what is described to be a pretty ugly scene.
Ailin Perez claims she was “assaulted” by fellow UFC fighter before bout
Perez didn’t pull out of her UFC fight, and even got a quality decision win over Lucie Pudilová. She then claimed she was assaulted as she gave her side of the story during the post-fight press conference.
Perez claims that the incident started because her fellow UFC bantamweight wasn’t happy about her previous comments.
“So, pretty much I’m someone just like everyone else. I don’t have a problem personally with anyone,” Perez told the assembled media after UFC Vegas 82. “What I did was I stated my opinion online about the fight. I didn’t disrespect anyone; I didn’t talk 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,” she said.
Perez also alluded to her coach’s involvement in the incident.
“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 continued. “And the fight probably would have been off if it wasn’t for my coach, who saved me.”
Interestingly enough, when asked about Edwards’ being the person who attacked her, Perez didn’t name names and says “I don’t remember.”
Assault? Joselyn Edwards claims Perez’s coach started the fight
Joselyn Edwards claims Perez’s coach, Javier Oyarzabal wasn’t the one trying to stop the fight. She says he “started the fight” and convinced them to fight in the cage.
“While we were fighting, her coach attacked me from behind. He was strangling me so that Ailin would hit me,” Edwards told MMA Mania. “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.”
MMA manager Alex Davis, who witnessed the entire incident, claimed that Perez’s coach was trying to choke Edwards out unconscious.
“I was sitting on the large octagon inside of the P.I. looking at my phone when I heard yelling to my right, Davis told MMA Mania. “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,” Davis continued. “When I got the coach off of Joselyn, the coach was ranting and yelling, trying to continue to fight. I was trying to calm Joselyn down because she thought she was still fighting.”
In a recent update, Davis revealed that after the incident, Oyarzabal ran into him and confronted him over his account.
“This is the truth from the point that I was involved,“ posted Davis on X (formerly Twitter). “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 f—k you, you a—hole!
Joselyne Edwards is 13-5 in her career, and is coming off a loss last September to Nora Cornolle that ended her three fight winning streak. Ailin Perez on the other hand, is 9-2, and is now on a two-fight winning streak after Saturday’s win over Pudilova.
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