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.
Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
Cases of coronavirus in the GCC as of March 15
Saudi Arabia – 103 infected, 0 dead, 1 recovered
UAE – 86 infected, 0 dead, 23 recovered
Bahrain – 210 infected, 0 dead, 44 recovered
Kuwait – 104 infected, 0 dead, 5 recovered
Qatar – 337 infected, 0 dead, 4 recovered
Oman – 19 infected, 0 dead, 9 recovered
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Monster Hunter: World
Capcom
PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
THE APPRENTICE
Director: Ali Abbasi
Starring: Sebastian Stan, Maria Bakalova, Jeremy Strong
Rating: 3/5
MATCH INFO
Qalandars 112-4 (10 ovs)
Banton 53 no
Northern Warriors 46 all out (9 ovs)
Kumara 3-10, Garton 3-10, Jordan 2-2, Prasanna 2-7
Qalandars win by six wickets
INDIA'S%20TOP%20INFLUENCERS
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Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
THE SPECS
Engine: 3.5-litre supercharged V6
Power: 416hp at 7,000rpm
Torque: 410Nm at 3,500rpm
Transmission: 6-speed manual
Fuel consumption: 10.2 l/100km
Price: Dh375,000
On sale: now
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The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
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Transmission: Single-speed automatic
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Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
The Bio
Name: Lynn Davison
Profession: History teacher at Al Yasmina Academy, Abu Dhabi
Children: She has one son, Casey, 28
Hometown: Pontefract, West Yorkshire in the UK
Favourite book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Favourite Author: CJ Sansom
Favourite holiday destination: Bali
Favourite food: A Sunday roast
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
The specs
Engine: 5.0-litre supercharged V8
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Power: 575bhp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: Dh554,000
On sale: now
Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah To The Last Goodbye
By Dave Lory with Jim Irvin
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
if you go
The flights
Air France offer flights from Dubai and Abu Dhabi to Cayenne, connecting in Paris from Dh7,300.
The tour
Cox & Kings (coxandkings.com) has a 14-night Hidden Guianas tour of Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. It includes accommodation, domestic flights, transfers, a local tour manager and guided sightseeing. Contact for price.
Terminator: Dark Fate
Director: Tim Miller
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis
Rating: 3/5
It Was Just an Accident
Director: Jafar Panahi
Stars: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr
Rating: 4/5
Roger Federer's record at Wimbledon
Roger Federer's record at Wimbledon
1999 - 1st round
2000 - 1st round
2001 - Quarter-finalist
2002 - 1st round
2003 - Winner
2004 - Winner
2005 - Winner
2006 - Winner
2007 - Winner
2008 - Finalist
2009 - Winner
2010 - Quarter-finalist
2011 - Quarter-finalist
2012 - Winner
2013 - 2nd round
2014 - Finalist
2015 - Finalist
2016 - Semi-finalist
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The%20specs
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What are the main cyber security threats?
Cyber crime - This includes fraud, impersonation, scams and deepfake technology, tactics that are increasingly targeting infrastructure and exploiting human vulnerabilities.
Cyber terrorism - Social media platforms are used to spread radical ideologies, misinformation and disinformation, often with the aim of disrupting critical infrastructure such as power grids.
Cyber warfare - Shaped by geopolitical tension, hostile actors seek to infiltrate and compromise national infrastructure, using one country’s systems as a springboard to launch attacks on others.
