Dakota Ditcheva remained undefeated with another highly impressive first-round finish this past Thursday in the PFL’s season opener of 2024, in San Antonio.
The promotion’s first regular season event of the year saw women’s flyweights and heavyweights compete, with Valentin Moldavsky finishing Ante Delija in the main event of the evening.
Opening up the main card was 25-year-old rising star, Dakota Ditcheva. After winning last year’s PFL Europe tournament scoring three finishes, ‘Dangerous’ Dakota secured her spot on the main roster this season.
Dakota Ditcheva defeats Lisa Mauldin with another finish
Heading into the biggest year of her career thus far with the potential of winning $1m, the PFL’s women’s flyweight division is one of the best flyweight rosters in MMA as a whole.
The Mancunian scored her eighth first-round stoppage against Lisa Mauldin, who was coming in off the back of two stoppage wins last year with the promotion. Ditcheva landed a huge body shot which dropped Mauldin to the ground, where Dakota followed her down and finished with some hellacious ground-and-pound.
Liz Carmouche made her promotional debut on the season opener on Thursday, after the PFL acquired the Bellator champion following the merger.
Another top fighter the promotion acquired was Taila Santos after the former UFC flyweight title challenger was shockingly released by the UFC last year. The 30-year-old submitted Ilara Joanne in the first round of their prelim fight.
Ditcheva is tied for the top spot in the standings as Santos and Jena Bishop both also scored first-round finishes on the event, all accumulating six points.
Dakota Ditcheva responds to Taila Santos’ call-out
Following the Brazilian’s debut win, Santos told the media that she would like to fight Ditcheva next saying: “I’d like to fight Dakota, I feel like she’s on a hype train right now and I don’t really feel like she’s fought anyone (of note) still.”
Ditcheva initially admitted that she ‘doesn’t care’ who her next opponent is because she claimed she is going to win the tournament regardless.
“Honestly I don’t really care (who’s next), the girls have put up good fights so far, I was watching in the changing rooms and a lot of them are tough competition so I’m just open to whoever I get put with and then once I’ve won this tournament anyone that I haven’t faced if they want to fight I’ll do that too.” Ditcheva said after her fight.
Despite that, the 25-year-old did issue a response to Santos’ call-out, by reminding her of her last loss in the UFC, against Erin Blanchfield.
“We’re both (Santos) elite strikers so it’d be a very good fight, but I don’t know what’s going to play out in the next round, it could be then that we face each other and not in the final. I know she’s commented on my posts before saying she wants Barbie’s belt which it’s a European belt for a start so she can’t have it and two, she’s got to get it off me so she wouldn’t get it either.
“She got beat by Erin Blanchfield, right? Did we all watch Erin’s fight last weekend, she didn’t have the best performance and Erin beat her so that’s all I’ve got to say on that.” Ditcheva added.
Because of the PFL’s season format, Ditcheva may not meet each other until the play-offs, but on the other hand, could end up fighting each other in the next regular season bout.
If that fight does surface, it’ll undoubtedly be the toughest test of ‘Dangerous’ Dakota’s MMA career thus far.