{"id":448862,"date":"2026-01-31T05:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T05:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/448862\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T05:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T05:03:07","slug":"pfl-ceo-warming-up-to-cris-cyborg-vs-dakota-ditcheva-at-the-right-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/448862\/","title":{"rendered":"PFL CEO warming up to Cris Cyborg vs. Dakota Ditcheva \u2013 at the right time"},"content":{"rendered":"

PFL CEO John Martin is open to a Cris Cyborg<\/a> vs. Dakota Ditcheva superfight \u2013 but not right now.<\/p>\n

Cyborg (29-2)\u00a0unexpectedly called out<\/a>\u00a0flyweight star Ditcheva (15-0) after finishing Sara Collins to earn the women’s featherweight title this past December, but Ditcheva wasn’t too interested<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The 2024 PFL women’s flyweight season winner was scheduled to face Denise Kielholtz at\u00a0PFL: Road to Dubai\u00a0on Feb. 7, but a hand injury forced her out of the fight. Martin thinks Ditcheva has better options in her division.<\/p>\n

“Dakota was supposed to be on the Dubai card. She had a hand injury and she had to pull out, so Denise Kielholtz, who was supposed to be her opponent, is still fighting,” Martin told MMA Junkie Radio. “Let’s see what happens in Dubai. I still like that fight for Dakota.<\/p>\n

“She’s healing nicely, she’s healing quickly, and so I would expect her to be fighting again sometime this summer. Then there’s somebody else in the weight class, Liz Carmouche, who’s also got some title consideration, and that’s a vacant title right now. So I want to see those fights play out.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

As for 40-year-old Cyborg, she confirmed her retirement is coming near. Martin teased some fight news soon for the champion.<\/p>\n

“I think Cris Cyborg, I’d like to see her fight this summer,” Martin said. “We’re trying to put something together for her and that would be really, really terrific. We’ll see. I will tell you, I like and I’m warming up to the idea of Cyborg-Ditcheva. I think it’s an interesting idea. I’d like to try and make that fight, I just want to do it at the right moment and the right time.”<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: PFL CEO John Martin addresses idea of Cris Cyborg vs. Dakota Ditcheva<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PFL CEO John Martin is open to a Cris Cyborg vs. Dakota Ditcheva superfight \u2013 but not right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,49041,5966,232214,786,93345,55691,785,109153,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-448862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cris-cyborg","11":"tag-dakota-ditcheva","12":"tag-denise-kielholtz","13":"tag-fighting","14":"tag-john-martin","15":"tag-liz-carmouche","16":"tag-mma","17":"tag-sara-collins","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}