Ilia Topuria and his ex, Giorgina Uzcategui Badell, wrapped up their messy separation earlier this year. And now, Badell appears to have joined a new foundation, supporting women. For that, Topuria’s ex-wife appears to have earned praise from Alex Pereira’s former partner. 

“What a fortune to be a woman and to be able to see each other, support each other, and lift each other up,” Badell said in a video she shared on Instagram. “Accompanying Seeds of Life Foundation, I witnessed something profoundly powerful. Women who, despite the pain, are choosing to rebuild themselves with love and strength, with their children in their hands.

“Because when a mother heals, she also heals the future of her children. Here, they find something that, for a long time, was taken away from them—a safe place, support, and the opportunity to start again. How beautiful it is to be able to look at another woman and tell her, ‘You are brave, I admire you, I respect you, you inspire me.’ 

“May you never break that invisible chain that unites us. There is life after, there is hope, and above all, whatever happens, we have the opportunity to rebuild ourselves again.”

Badell has joined the Seeds of Life Foundation, a Miami-based non-profit organization providing resources & support to victims of verbal, physical, s—ual abuse & s—ual exploitation. Reacting to the post on Instagram, Alex Pereira’s former partner, Merle Christine, praised Giorgina Uzcategui Badell for the move.

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A post shared by Giorgina Uzcategui Badell (@giorginauzcategui)

“👏👏👏,” Christine commented.

Topuria and Badell, who share a daughter born in 2024, started their legal separation process in August 2025. The UFC lightweight champion filed for divorce in October with terms focused on child custody and asset allocation. However, his ex filed a complaint against him in November of domestic and gender violence, and petitioned for their daughter to be moved to Miami.

In response, ‘El Matador’ quickly denied the allegations and claimed Badell was trying to extort him. This was also the period when Topuria had to step away from competition to take care of legal matters. By early January, a judge rejected Giorgina’s request to relocate their daughter to Miami. And by early February, both parties reached an out-of-court settlement. 

Giorgina withdrew the abuse complaint, all legal actions were dropped, and they agreed on custody and financial terms largely aligned with Topuria’s original proposal. After the settlement, the Georgian-Spanish fighter was allowed to keep his Madrid mansion, which was previously put on sale when the separation began. 

Topuria returned to training, and his next fight against Justin Gaethje on June 14 at the White House lawn was confirmed in March during UFC 326. In any case, Topuria wasn’t the only one who had to go through a messy separation. 

Alex Pereira, like Ilia Topuria, had a messy separation

The former UFC light heavyweight champion was in a relationship with Merle Christine, a German-Brazilian TV presenter and MMA content creator. The former couple dated for around two years. After they went public in 2022, the pair even announced that they had gotten engaged in 2023. 

Everything came to an end in December 2023, when fans noticed the couple had deleted all of their pictures together and unfollowed each other on Instagram. Later, during an interview with Full Send MMA, ‘Poatan’ explained what had caused their separation. 

“Well, it’s a little hard to talk about this because for me, I already deleted this person from my life. I would also like to ask my fans to also delete her from your life. It was a person, I believed. I put her in my house with my family. After all, I found out, she was married.”

Christine, however, denied the accusations and claimed she had broken up with Pereira before. 

Regardless, now, Pereira’s ex appears to be supporting Topuria’s ex. While they may have separate stories, both of their journeys appear to parallel each other, especially how they ended things—on a bitter note.