Ailin Perez went from a UFC fighter who went viral for twerking, to being the center of attention due to an incident that occurred ahead of her most recent fight.
Perez defeated Lucie Pudilova during the UFC Vegas 82 prelims this past Saturday (November 18). Following her hard-fought unanimous decision win, Perez decided to have a full-on twerk session inside the Octagon, which garnered her some attention on social media. Not long after the twerk videos were gaining steam, reports surfaced of an ugly incident that took place inside the UFC PI during fight week.
Joselyne Edwards gave Ailin Perez the black eye and the cut at the PI.
Ailin's coach punched Joselyne back and choked her out after.
They had to pull the guy off her.
Per sources.— The Legend of MagicM MMA (@MagicM_MMABets) November 18, 2023
Wild UFC PI Incident Involving Ailin Perez, Joselyn Edwards, and Male Coach
Fight fans noticed before Perez vs. Pudilova started that the former had a noticeable black eye. During her post-fight interview, Ailin Perez claimed another fighter assaulted her at the UFC PI, but she didn’t confirm who the alleged attacker was (h/t MMAMania.com).
“So, pretty much I’m someone just like everyone else. I don’t have a problem personally with anyone,” Perez said. “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.
“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.”
"That's some unique striking there, Dom."
Paul Felder goading Dominick Cruz during Ailín Pérez's twerk-and-pound was priceless. pic.twitter.com/RjCI51nljh
— RJ Clifford (@RJcliffordMMA) November 20, 2023
In a statement sent out to MMAMania.com, Joselyne Edwards confirmed that her and Ailin got into a brawl. She also claimed Perez’s coach got her in a choke, which Edwards was struggling to defend as she claims to have a cast on her left hand and had a recent operation done on her right hand.
“While we were fighting, her coach attacked me from behind. He was strangling me so that Ailin would hit me,” Edwards wrote. “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.”
Cutting from Ailin Perez’s kid to her twerking was nasty work https://t.co/6eQp2rwvPL
— Spinnin Backfist (@SpinninBackfist) November 18, 2023
Well-known MMA manager Alex Davis, who was around for UFC Vegas 82 fight week to represent Amanda Ribas, told MMAMania that he had to step in to break things up and he claimed it was Perez’s coach Javier Oyarzabal who tried choking Joselyne Edwards out.
“I’m not sure if she was fully unconscious, but she was close,” Davis said. “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.”
