Dakota Ditcheva just isn’t that into the idea of a superfight with Cris Cyborg.
Cyborg (29-2) unexpectedly called out Ditcheva (15-0) after finishing Sara Collins to earn the women’s featherweight title in the 2025 PFL Europe 4 co-main event this past December in Lyon, France. Ditcheva, the 2024 PFL women’s flyweight season winner, was scheduled to face Denise Kielholtz at PFL: Road to Dubai on Feb. 7, but a hand injury forced her out of the fight. She explained why she never entertained Cyborg’s callout in the immediate aftermath.
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“I was honored to be called out by her, but I just feel like it didn’t make very much sense right now,” Ditcheva said on “The Ariel Helwani Show.” “If Cyborg could make 135, and she had a bit more time – she’s saying it’s her last fight. I haven’t got time to put that much weight on because I’m not a big 125’er. I don’t have a tough weight cut at all. For me, I’d have to strengthen up big, but I would have done it if she was even close to 135, and you paid me some big money. Hell yeah, I’d get in. But it just didn’t make sense.”
Ditcheva said Cyborg would be the one benefitting from the matchup.
“Respectfully, she’s not giving the fight. I am,” Ditcheva said. “I’d 100 percent be the one who sells that fight more. It would be a superfight, but she’s calling me out like she’s picking me. She needs me. She’s not picking anyone else out. Leah (McCourt has) been asking for it for ages. She’s not picking Leah out.
“It’s a superfight for sure, but you kind of need me to make it big, and obviously it makes sense on her part. I’m not calling out no 105 atomweight person. It doesn’t make sense, but that’s why I didn’t entertain it. I don’t like feeding into people just using my name all the time.”
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The lowest Cyborg ever competed at was 140 pounds. She assured Ditcheva that she would make bantamweight in a response post on “X.”
“Super fights take two people,” Cyborg wrote. “I can make 135 for a superfight in the fall @dakotadofficial. If this is a fight you want… there isn’t a bigger fight that the @PFLMMA can put on for either one of us. I’m 40. My body carries much less muscle than it did when I struggled to make 140. I won’t miss weight for my retirement fight.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Dakota Ditcheva breaks silence on callout from Cris Cyborg
