UFC Vegas 82’s Ailin Perez involved in wild fight-week brawl at Performance Institute, Joselyn Edwards choked out by male coach

It was an interesting fight week for Ailin Perez.

Perez picked up her second UFC win at UFC Vegas 82 this weekend (Sat., Nov. 18, 2023), handing Lucie Pudilova her second straight loss via unanimous decision from inside UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Throughout the week leading up to Perez’s fight, eagle-eyed fans noticed that she had a new black eye, and now details have emerged.

During her post-fight interview, Perez revealed how she got the shiner.

“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.”

Perez did not “remember” who punched her, but MMAMania.com can confirm it was UFC Bantamweight Joselyn Edwards. The brawl went down at UFC’s Performance Institute located next door to UFC Apex on Tuesday (Nov. 14, 2023).

Edwards also gave MMAMania.com a statement about the situation.

“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.”

Edwards recently had surgery on her right hand and has a cast on her left hand. As a result, the Panamanian fighter says she could not properly defend herself.

According to long-time mixed martial arts (MMA) manager, Alex Davis — who was at UFC P.I. because his client (Amanda Ribas) was there training — there was something that both fighters left out:

Perez’s coach, Javier Oyarzabal, was trying to choke Edwards 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 MMAMania.com. “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.”

According to Edwards, it was Oyarzabal who started the physical fight between the two women bantamweights because he convinced them to fight inside the cage.

At the moment, there is no information on whether the two fighters will be reprimanded for the brawl.

Perez is 2-1 in UFC, riding a two-fight win streak, while Edwards had her three-fight win streak snapped in Sept. against Nora Cornolle.

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For complete UFC Vegas 82 results, coverage and highlights click HERE.