Argentinian bantamweight Ailin Perez overcame a difficult week in Paris to make a statement at UFC Paris, then said she wants the UFC to bring a show to her homeland.
From a tough weight cut to a first-round win
Perez endured a hard weight cut during fight week in Paris, and looked drained and unsteady on the scale as she weighed in half a pound over the contracted weight for her matchup with Darya Zheleznyakova.
But, despite the concerning scenes of Perez on the scale, the 29-year-old recovered fully and produced one of the eye-catching performances of the night at the Accor Arena to claim a first-round arm-triangle submission victory and improve her record to 11 wins, two losses and extend her win streak to four.
"Like I always say, I want to be the protagonist of every show that I'm at, for the fans and for the for the UFC," she told UFC.com backstage after her victory.
"I was happy that they find they gave me an opponent with this level of experience, because since I joined the UFC, they've been giving me a lot of UFC veterans that have at least five fights in the UFC.
"So it was nice to be able to get a fighter that was, I guess, a little bit less challenging compared to the rest, so I could show myself and really get a highlight win instead of winning by decision against harder, more challenging fighters."
Perez dedicated submission win to her coach
It was a full-circle moment for Perez, who lost her UFC debut in Paris back in September 2022 when she was submitted by Switzerland's Stephanie Egger. But on Saturday night, she returned to the same arena and after a punishing weight cut, produced her best performance in the UFC to date to claim her first finish inside the Octagon.
"I want to dedicate the submission that I got to my coach, Javier Oyarzabal," she said, as she paid tribute to her coach at the Goatshed Academy.
"Two months ago, we saw this submission during film study, and we realized that we had to work on that, so we did. And yeah, I was not going to let go of that until the referee pulled me off.
"We try to use submissions from different angles and try to practice that to make sure that we can finish. Because, in Goatshed, we're all finishers. We're the best team, and we made sure that if we had to get a submission (if) we had to work from her back, from her full guard, half-guard, in every single position, side control, to make sure that she can get it, so that's why I was able to get it."
Perez wants to help bring the UFC to Argentina
Perez is building her resume as a future championship contender in the women's 135-pound division, but she has other goals she wants to accomplish, too, and with the UFC having only hosted one event in Argentina before (in November 2018), she revealed her wish to help bring the UFC back to her homeland for another show.
"My biggest dream is to be the one to bring UFC to Argentina," she smiled.
"Mick Maynard (UFC matchmaker) is doing a great job of setting my career up in the UFC, getting the right fights for me. So I'm done asking for specific names.
"I'm already in the top 15, so I'm going to stop asking for anyone, because everyone who I call out ends up running away anyways.
"So what I would want to do is finish the year in UFC Tampa in December, or potentially even maybe if they have a card in Miami to do that, because I consider myself a Floridian now that I'm living in the United States, and that's what I would like to do."
