Ailin Perez: ‘I Deserve to Keep Winning’

Ailin Perez seems to have shed the shroud of relative anonymity that greeted her arrival in the Ultimate Fighting Championship a few short years ago. Prolonged winning streaks tend to have such effects.

Having climbed all the way into the Top 15 at 135 pounds, Perez will attempt to move ever closer to contention in the women’s bantamweight division when she collides with Karol Rosa as part of the UFC 311 undercard on Saturday at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California. The 30-year-old Argentinian upstart has rattled off four consecutive victories since she submitted to a Stephanie Egger rear-naked choke in her September 2022 promotional debut.

“All my work is reflected in my results,” Perez told Sherdog.com. “I deserve to keep winning.”

Rosa figures to have other ideas. She sports a 7-3 record across her 10 appearances in the UFC, with wins over Joselyne Edwards, Bethe Correia, Lina Lansberg and Yana Santos. Rosa, 30, last competed at UFC on ESPN 61, where she took a unanimous decision from former Cage Warriors Fighting Championship titleholder Pannie Kianzad on Aug. 10.

“I think Karol is a tough fighter, a warrior,” Perez said. “I don’t feel she has the necessary tools to beat me. I’m going to submit her. The goal is not Karol; it’s the belt.”

Perez last suited up on Sept. 28, when she put away Darya Zheleznyakova with an arm-triangle choke in the first round of their UFC Fight Night 233 pairing. It was her first finish in more than two years. Perez continues to operate out of The Goat Shed Academy in Miami, where she has entrusted her development to coaches Asim Zaidi, Mango Rodriguez and Selman Berisha.

“I always try to make my training camp 100% better than the previous one,” she said. “That’s what I look for—to evolve in each training session. In this camp, we focused a lot on mentality more than anything. That’s what we need to win.”