2024 PFL Women's Flyweight Champion Dakota Ditcheva sees one area in which her current promotion firmly surpasses the mixed martial arts leader.
The Professional Fighters League and its higher-ups like founder Donn Davis have long outlined its intentions to reach "co-leader" status in MMA. But while the acquisition of rival promotion Bellator MMA appeared to mark a potential step toward that, 2024 didn't exactly go to plan.
The year ended with multiple Bellator fighters, including champions Patrício "Pitbull" Freire" and Patchy Mix, publicly calling out the PFL over canceled fights and events, even requesting their releases.
With that, plenty remain skeptical about the organization's long-term future, let alone ability to rival the UFC. But that doesn't mean the PFL hasn't excelled in some areas — namely, Europe.
During a recent interview with MMA Fighting, Dakota Ditcheva — one of the biggest names to emerge from the promotion's first regional expansion, PFL Europe — lauded her employer for placing focus on discovering the next generation of top MMA fighters in the continent.
One thing I will say about that, people were commenting all the time, 'UFC missed out on PFL [Europe],' and what PFL did right was they went to Europe and picked up that young talent, and that’s how they ended up with me," Ditcheva said. "They’ve kind of gone out of that top-level zone, picked up the young talent, and now look what they’re getting.
I do think they’re very clever with it and think they’ll come up with something cool (next)," Ditcheva concluded.
After establishing herself as one to watch with a few wins under the PFL banner, Ditcheva — MMA News' Female Fighter of the Year for 2024 — competed as part of the inaugural PFL Europe season. She breezed through the competition en route to the women's flyweight title in 2023.
That secured her spot in the very first PFL Global 125-pound season this year, placing her on a roster that included the likes of Taila Santos, Liz Carmouche, and Juliana Velasquez. "Dangerous" proved that the hype behind her name is warranted, recording three finishes to reach the final before obliterating Santos for the belt and $1 million prize money.
Many have since expressed a desire to see Ditcheva under the UFC banner, especially with her next step in the PFL unknown. The Brit has already suggested that a return to the season format wouldn't make sense, instead pitching herself as part of the PFL Super Fights events.
Given the difficult many have seemingly had securing fights, it remains to be seen whether such a switch would provide the level of activity that the undefeated 26-year-old is after.