Dakota Ditcheva said she did not choose her opponent for her return to the PFL. She said PFL came to her with Denise Kielholtz for Friday’s event in New York, and that was the fight she accepted after being out for a year.
The timing matters because Ditcheva had already been moved once before. She was originally scheduled to compete in February after recovering from an injury, then suffered another injury that pushed her comeback back again until Friday. By then, PFL had a reason of its own for making the matchup. The promotion said Kielholtz had been promised a fight after winning in Dubai, and Ditcheva said that made sense to her. “I don’t ever pick my opponents,” she said. “I let PFL come to me with whoever they want to put me against and I think they felt like Denise made sense.”
That leaves the louder question around Liz Carmouche hanging in the background, even if Ditcheva is trying not to feed it. Carmouche was discussed as the top-ranked flyweight contender while Ditcheva was away, but Ditcheva said she is not avoiding her. “Liz has had her comments but if we end up fighting, we end up fighting,” she said. “That’s not something I’m avoiding at all.” She added that she would take the fight if PFL makes it next, even without a belt at stake, as long as she is fighting for her No. 1 spot.
That is the real line here: Ditcheva is returning to a division that kept moving without her, and she is saying she will slot back in wherever PFL puts her. She said she had to fit in with a weight class that had been busy without her, and that there are more fighters in it now. For now, the return fight is Kielholtz. If the next one is Carmouche, Ditcheva says she will be ready for that too.
