Bantamweight standout Ailin Perez opened up about her altercation with fellow UFC fighter Joselyne Edwards at the Performance Institute days ahead of her return to the Octagon.
When Perez stepped inside the cage at UFC Vegas 82 on Saturday, she was already sporting a shiner under her left eye. Many fight fans assumed that it was a battle wound from training. As it turns out, the blemish was left by Edwards following a bizarre incident at the UFC PI on Tuesday.
Appearing on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, Perez shared her take on the incident with Edwards.
“I went into the PI with my son and my coach and I saw in the cafeteria that Joselyne Edwards was there, sitting there staring at me with her looking up,” Perez said. “I thought it was pretty weird, but I thought, ‘Okay, whatever. I’m gonna go upstairs and start my training.’ When training finished, I was getting a photoshoot done by the UFC photographer and Jocelyn Edwards got closer to the cage. She comes up to me and she starts talking, saying, ‘You better win your next fight because you talk too much.’
“[My] response to her was just saying, ‘Hi, how are you?’ and she went back and said, ‘No. You better win your next fight.’ That where [I] said, ‘I’m going to win my next fight. Don’t worry. That’s why I’m training and I trained hard.’ I was not disrespectful to her, I just made it clear to her without backing down that I’m going to win my next fight, don’t you worry.
“She was speaking to [me] in a way that made me feel like I was very little value and that she was very high value saying, ‘You better win your next fight because you’re probably not going to win it. You haven’t accomplished anything in the UFC and just to let you know, you’re not gonna win.’ It could be true, it could be not, what she’s saying, but [I] asked Joselyne, ‘What’s your problem with me?’ That’s when Joselyne said, ‘You speak too much on Instagram. You comment too much on my things.’
“I told her, if you want to fight, we can fight with the UFC. We can talk to the UFC and I’ll accept the fight, but we’re not going to be fighting here today. So please leave, I’m going to be training now. I have a fight to worry about so please, respectfully, get out of here.”
Ailín Pérez message to Joselyne Edwards:
What is your problem? Because at the end of the day, I offered to do the fight in the UFC and instead of wanting to compete with me in a professional sports manner, you tried to assault me. So, what is it that you want?
2/2#TheMMAHour pic.twitter.com/WsXwrwZEZX— Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) November 22, 2023
Ailin Perez Says Her Coach Was Forced to Step in and Pull Jocelyn Edwards Off Her
Ailin Perez revealed that at that point, Edwards became increasingly aggressive and stepped inside the cage looking to take things to the next level.
“[Edwards] got aggressive,” Perez continued. “Hits against the cage and goes inside the cage and she’s coming at a fast and aggressive manner toward me. She takes off her hoodie. She takes off her headphones.”
With her fight only days away and her child in the facility, though thankfully not in the room during the incident, Perez opted to put her guard up preparing for the worst rather than engaging. It was then that she was hit with either a punch or an elbow.
From there, Perez says that Edwards immediately jumped on top of her.
“My first reaction once I got hit in the eye, I couldn’t really see what was going on because I got blinded for a second. I tried to grab her to hold on and clinch so I wouldn’t get hit anymore, but I never threw a punch. My eye was in extreme pain and I felt blood running down because she did cut me with that hit and at that point I was already feeling extremely weak because of the weight cut. I was disoriented because I didn’t think I was going to be in a fight in that moment.”
In the end, it was Ailin Perez’s coach who had to step in, putting Edwards in a rear-naked choke to pull her off of Perez.
“I ran out of the cage, didn’t even look at Jocelyn and I started screaming, ‘Security, security. Please help me. There’s a crazy person in the cage that’s trying to hurt me.’ They brought me into another room where a bunch of the UFC staff was to make sure I was okay. I was in a very bad place mentally after the assault. I was very disoriented and I want to thank the UFC because they made sure they were able to close my eye with stitches.
“They took care of me. Made sure I was mentally okay and physically okay and made sure that the situation was diffused as fast as possible.”
Ailin Perez Has Seen Her OnlyFans Explode in the Days Following Her Win at UFC Vegas 82
Fortunately, the incident did affect Perez’s ability to compete inside The APEX later that week. In fact, she delivered a near-flawless performance, earning a unanimous decision victory over Lucie Pudilová. A winner in back-to-back fights, Perez has won four of her last five and is 2-1 under the UFC banner.
However, the Octagon is not the only place she’s finding success these days. Since her win over Pudilová, Perez has seen a significant increase in subscribers to her OnlyFans page.
“On a month-to-month basis, it depends because I keep evolving, but since Thursday to now, it’s been over $30,000,” Perez revealed when asked how much she currently makes from OnlyFans. “Each time I fight, it’s just going to keep multiplying to the point where it’s going to be even better each time that she fights. I’m not going to be any more inappropriate with my content, but I’m going to keep posting the same things, the same type of content, but making even more.
“I take advantage of OnlyFans because the money I got from OnlyFans, I was able to buy myself a car. I’m in the UFC because I love to fight. This is the challenge that I’ve put forth for myself and I’m in the UFC because I love it, but I’m spending the money I have [earned] on OnlyFans.”
In comparison, Perez made $24,000 for her win over Pudilová before any sponsorship payouts were included. Perez is still on her first contract with the promotion.
Ailín Pérez says since Thursday she has made $30K on her OnlyFans.
Says she made $24K for the fight (that is before any sponsorship money is received).#TheMMAHour pic.twitter.com/sUC7Hx6gw7
— Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) November 22, 2023
