Together with her massive second spherical TKO win over Taila Santos on the PFL 2024 Championships, Dakota Ditcheva is finished being humble about her place within the pecking order of WMMA.
Ditcheva has been wrecking her approach via the ranks of the PFL since 2022 and is now 9-0 with 9 finishes within the promotion. However till she confronted Santos within the finals of the flyweight event, she was lacking that identify opponent that may enable her to match herself to competitors within the UFC.
She has that now: Taila Santos took UFC flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko to a hotly contested break up resolution, and went the gap with No. 3 ranked Erin Blanchfield. She beat former UFC title contender Liz Carmouche within the PFL semi-finals. And Ditcheva nonetheless took Santos out in underneath 10 minutes, hitting the powerful Brazilian with a nasty physique shot that buckled her after which following up with some imply punches to the liver.
In Dakota’s thoughts, that places her on the prime of her division throughout the game, and proper into the ladies’s pound-for-pound rankings too.
“Yeah, I’m [a top five flyweight],” Ditcheva stated on The Ariel Helwani Present. “I’d in all probability say prime ten [pound-for-pound]. I really feel like I’ve obtained much more to show, much more years of the game to sort of show myself a little bit bit. Them fighters have been round for a very long time, so I’ll say prime 10 pound-for-pound.”
“Particularly now that I’ve beat a reputation like Santos. She’s by no means been stopped. Shevchenko didn’t cease her. Individuals thought she beat [Shevchenko] and now what can individuals actually say? Blanchfield went 5 rounds together with her. There’s been loads of fighters which have needed to go 5 rounds together with her, and I’ve simply obtained in there and made it appear to be one other can on the checklist that folks all the time touch upon my stuff. So I really feel like I’m undoubtedly within the dialog now.”
“I’m not saying I’m up there on the prime, however you undoubtedly need to take me severe.”
We’ve been taking Ditcheva severely since we discovered who her mom was: former muay thai, kickboxing, and karate champion Lisa Howarth, who was educated by Thohsaphol “Grasp Toddy” Sitiwatjana. Howarth is a pioneer of ladies’s fight sports activities and one imply fighter — a function that has clearly been handed on to Ditcheva, whose ending potential comes from an intuitive potential to harm her opponents from any angle.
As a lot as we’d like to see “Harmful” bounce from PFL to UFC, she’s not going anyplace any time quickly.
“No, I’m locked up with PFL,” she stated concerning her contract standing. “I’ll undoubtedly be combating for PFL subsequent yr, particularly now with the ladies’s title. I’ve gotta defend it, and I’m not planning on abandoning that belt simply but.”
“I’m solely 26, I’ve obtained a lot extra to present to PFL,” she stated earlier than questioning out loud whether or not she’d find yourself again in subsequent yr’s event. “I would like higher competitors, and I need to battle higher individuals. A giant tremendous battle would would profit me extra. Would individuals wanna see me again within the event combating the identical women once more? I’m undecided everybody could be entertained by that.”
“So I feel perhaps a giant battle subsequent yr could be higher, however I’m comfortable to do the event once more as a result of I actually loved it.”
One factor she made clear after her win was she needed PFL to deliver her house to Manchester for her subsequent battle. Given how shortly her star is rising at a time the place the promotion wants a brand new identify or two, we’d be shocked in the event that they didn’t set that up.
