Dakota Ditcheva has become one of the biggest names on the PFL roster but her 2026 got off to a rough start after a hand injury prevented her from competing on the debut card in Dubai.<\/p>\n
Now with the cast removed, Ditcheva is recovering with PFL CEO John Martin revealing her timeline to return once she\u2019s fully healed.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s healing well,\u201d Martin told MMA Fighting. \u201cI expect that she\u2019ll be fighting this summer. I want to make sure it heals well but she\u2019s healing well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since arriving in the PFL, Ditcheva has remained undefeated and transformed into one of the promotion\u2019s biggest stars during a dominant run through the old season long format, which included a knockout win over former UFC title challenger Taila Santos. She was originally scheduled to clash with Denise Kielholtz at the PFL Dubai card but her injury prevented that from happening.<\/p>\n
Kielholtz remained on the card and picked up a decision win over Antonia Silvaneide but the PFL hasn\u2019t made any decisions yet about rebooking her against Ditcheva or potentially moving in a different direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I still like that fight for Dakota,\u201d Martin said about Kielholtz. \u201cLiz Carmouche is around, and I think has to be part of the title conversation. I\u2019m excited to see her get back in the cage. It will be almost a year if it\u2019s this summer but obviously she\u2019s got to be healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Undoubtedly the biggest fight the PFL could book for Ditcheva is a showdown against featherweight champion Cris Cyborg, who has repeatedly called for the matchup after she dismantled Sara Collins to win the 145-pound title this past December.<\/p>\n
Cyborg has vowed that she would cut down to 135 pounds for the fight while Ditcheva would obviously have to move up from her regular weight at 125 pounds. Of course, Cyborg is widely regarded as one of the greatest women\u2019s fighters of all time with title reigns in both the UFC and Bellator before eventually joining the PFL roster.<\/p>\n
Despite the size difference, Martin admits he\u2019s definitely intrigued by the possibility of booking Ditcheva against Cyborg but all the pieces of the puzzle have to line up to make it happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to try to make that fight happen,\u201d Martin said. \u201cI think there\u2019s a natural order to get to that fight though. I\u2019d like to see Cris Cyborg fight this summer and there\u2019s somebody else other than Dakota and I\u2019m going to work to try to make that fight. Maybe that\u2019s at the same time Dakota\u2019s fighting these other people that I mentioned.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Dakota wins and becomes champion, I think a fight with Cris Cyborg would be incredibly exciting. We\u2019ll see what happens, but I\u2019d like to make that fight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dakota Ditcheva has become one of the biggest names on the PFL roster but her 2026 got off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,44,1863,8417,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-486024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-mma","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pfl","14":"tag-pfl-news","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}