Dakota Ditcheva is on a run to put her name in a category with fighters like Kayla Harrison, Amanda Nunes, and Ronda Rousey. She can capture an inaugural million-dollar prize in the PFL’s women’s flyweight division and cement her spot in a conversation of the greatest of all time at just 25 years of age. The PFL European champion has continued her dominance with wins over Lisa Mauldin and Chelsea Hackett. Her next test is undoubtably the toughest of this 2024 season thus far in the first playoff versus Jena Bishop.
Jena is coming in and holding a record of 1-1 this season. She comes in with a win over the previously mentioned, Hackett, and a loss to the two-seed and former UFC title challenger, Taila Santos. At Mohegan Sun, Bishop came up just short in a split decision loss against Santos. She proved that she can compete with the best the division has to offer. Bishop deservingly sneaks into the playoffs and will likely come in as a betting underdog against Ditcheva. To this point, Ditcheva has looked unbreakable throughout her career but Bishop hopes to change this.
In Ditcheva’s career, the one thing we haven’t seen much of is fights going into later rounds. It is hard to expect for this to continue as her competition continues to improve as her career progresses. Bishop is a game competitor with a path to victory. In this fight, she is going to be to apply pressure but be situationally smart when engaging with the fighter whose nickname is “Dangerous”. Ditcheva in her last two PFL fights has controlled for most of the fights which have led to flawless finishes. However, against Hackett, she had moments where she could have been caught by the Aussie. The issue for Hackett was due to Ditcheva’s high fight IQ, she was able to regroup and regain full control of the short-lived fight. Bishop will have to use her fight IQ and her ground game to force Ditcheva to take some chances. Something that we have not seen her need to use. Bishop has a high level ground game and I would expect her to test Ditcheva’s training from American Top Team on the ground. She will need this to be on display if she plans to be victorious and move onto the finals.
Dakota Ditcheva has been dominant and this leads to her not being tested much. Over 12 professional fights, she has finishes in all 12 and has finished 10 fights in the 1st round. Ditcheva will look to keep this fight standing, and if successful, she has the potential to continue the trend into the finals. Her stand up is world class with the coaching from American Top Team and her brother, Cody. They can make this a long night for Bishop if this fight stays on the feet. Well-rounded is the perfect phrase to describe Ditcheva, and I would expect for her ground game to be top notch. However, if you can avoid the trouble with Bishop, she can easily punch her ticket to the final and cement herself as the face of the PFL.
Prediction: I expect Ditcheva to get the job done in what will be her toughest test yet. I expect her to get into moments of trouble bit show the ability to overcome adversity. This may give something to study for future opponents especially for Liz Carmouche and Taila Santos. In Nashville, both Carmouche and Santos are set to face off in the other semi-final on August 2 for the PFL women’s flyweight championship.
