Dakota Ditcheva will put her perfect professional record on the line when she faces Brazil's Taila Santos for the 2024 Professional Fighters League World Championship women's flyweight belt – with a cheque for $1 million up for grabs.
The contest is the co-main event on a card headlined by Brendan Loughnane's featherweight title fight against the undefeated Russian Timur Khizriev at the King Saud University in Riyadh on Friday.
Ditcheva, 26, has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the PFL after one appearance in the UAE Warriors, when she beat Brazilian Paula Cristina by a unanimous decision in March 2022 in Abu Dhabi.
Since then, she has recorded eight wins in the PFL, a run that includes seven first-round finishes.
Her meeting with Santos is her toughest yet, but after blazing a trail in the mixed martial arts world, she says she is in good shape to face the experienced Santos.
“It’s a big fight for sure, but I'm excited. I've had a really good success in this [PFL] tournament and I'm going to end it the same way,” Ditcheva told The National in a Zoom interview.
“It's another very testing fight for me, but one that I'm capable of winning. I'm going to bring that world title home for sure.”
Ditcheva won the PFL Europe by stopping Italian Valentina Scatizzi in the first round last year, but this time she’s in the global finals.
“Being a global final, this definitely is my toughest opponent and the most experienced one as well. She's had a lot of fights, a lot of fights in the UFC,” said the rising British star.
“She's fought champions before and she's, you know, never been stopped competing. So it's definitely going to be a fight for sure.
“Everyone keeps talking about how tough she is but I'm tough as well. I think that's what they forget. She's not fighting somebody easy and I'm not fighting someone easy. I'm going to turn up on the night and do what I always do.
“The striking is the main attribute that I bring to the fight. She's a very good striker as well. She's also done Muaythai before. It will be like two styles kind of together. We'll see who the best woman is.”
Ditcheva moved to Dubai earlier in the year but has spent the majority of this training in Florida as she competes in the PFL tournament.
“I had to be training all the time, but when I get a week off, Dubai is where I go back,” she said.
“That is where in the future I would like to spend a lot of my time, and most of my time really, when I'm not fighting.”
Ditcheva credits her rise in MMA to her family, especially her mother who has a backgroundin combat sports.
“I have a lot of skills that stand out a lot and do get noticed a lot for my striking and then I think that's just how I kind of built up my name, since being with PFL,” she said of her journey in MMA.
“Having a lot of success winning my fights, getting stoppages, and it's kind of caught on for a lot of people. I think that's how I've grown my name. They come from my mum, who used to be a fighter and that's kind of where I got my fighting genes from, I think.
“A lot of people compare our videos and it shows how similar we were in styles and things like that. So, it definitely runs in the family, in the blood.
“My mum was very athletic. My dad was very athletic as well. He didn't fight, but he was very sporty and he's very talented at a different sport.
“That definitely runs in the family. My brothers – I have two – they're very athletic as well. They play football, so it kind of just runs in the family.”
Ditcheva's family will all be in Riyadh to support her on fight night. She was a gold medallist for Britain at the 2016 Muaythai World Championships in Sweden and is also a versatile sportswoman, who has played football, basketball, netball and gymnastics.
“My time now is very much just in the gym all the time, especially when I have a fight coming up. I have to dedicate my whole life to this sport, there's not really much going on in between,” Ditcheva said.
“I get time to go and watch other sports and attend different games on the weekend and things like that but, honestly, I'm just in the gym working hard all the time and that's kind of what you have to accept if you want to be one of these high-level fighters.”
The $1m prize is the biggest purse Ditcheva has fought for, but while the money is an incentive, to win the world title is more important to her.
“I'm more bothered about the belt right now. I want to be world champion for sure and then the money is obviously life-changing for me and my family,” she said.
“It's a big moment, but I'm not thinking too much about that there's money to be made. Money comes and goes all the time, so for me, the main focus is to win the World Championship and stay undefeated and be the number one female.
“MMA was something that I tried and absolutely loved. And then since, then I've kind of just been building and building, working hard, and I've got to this point now where I'm with PFL.
“The next thing on my list is to become world champion. I hope I do that on Friday. There'll be plenty more goals that I can achieve after that.”
Santos, 31, goes into the bout on the back of three victories in the PFL since moving to the promotion from the UFC and boasts a record of 22 wins against three losses.
