Unbeaten Dakota Ditcheva hopes PFL follows through with 2024 women's flyweight season
After original assurances of future plans, undefeated rising star Dakota Ditcheva admits she's unsure what her PFL path looks like in 2024.
Dakota Ditcheva hopes PFL delivers on a $1 million women’s flyweight season in 2024.
Ditcheva (9-0), who claimed the PFL Europe women’s flyweight title with a first-round TKO of Valentina Scatizzi at PFL Europe 4 in December, said the original message she was presented with by the promotion to start 2023 was that the the promotion would run a 125-pound tournament under its primary banner this year.
The acquisition of Bellator has thrown the exact direction of the company moving forward into a degree of limbo, but Ditcheva is keeping optimistic her past assurances will still hold true.
“To be honest I haven’t heard too much – I’m waiting,” Ditcheva told MMA Junkie Radio. “I saw the manager today and he said they’re coming back to him early next week, so I’ll know more then. Things that have been floated in the air, when I signed, I signed to do the European championship, then the next year they were going to run the worlds which would be a new category because they don’t have (women’s flyweight) yet.
“With the signing of Bellator and taking over that and plans to go to Saudi Arabia as well – a lot of things have changed with PFL now. They’ve got so many things going on they are just reevaluating things and seeing what’s going on and seeing what they are going to do. I don’t know if they are going to do a flyweight tournament for the worlds or not.”
Ditcheva, 25, is primarily hoping for a chance to stay active and build her resume with something consistent. She inherited her passion and approach to combat sports from her mother, who was also a fighter, and strives to push her undefeated run as long as possible and follow the path of some of the MMA greats who transitioned from striking backgrounds to find success in the cage.
“As for fighters that have inspired me, Joanna Jedrzejczyk and (Valentina) Shevchenko are two females I’ve kind of watches and watched their careers and the way they’ve been successfully, just because they started out in striking just like I did,” Ditcheva said. “I watched them when I did Thai boxing and then transitioned to how well they did in MMA. It was kind of something I kind of carried on following. Those are two in particular that inspired me to make that transition. I felt like I could do the same thing.”