British female fighter dubbed ‘next MMA superstar’ by Jake Paul scores brutal KO after beckoning opponent to her feet

Dakota Ditcheva has progressed to her second straight PFL championship final.

The British MMA star blasted out Jena Bishop on Friday night at PFL 7 with a flurry of knees and punches to record another first-round stoppage and book her place in the 2024 PFL Women’s Flyweight Tournament final.

After escaping an early takedown, Ditcheva decked Bishop in the opening 60 seconds with a vicious knee to the head.

Ditcheva then beckoned her opponent to her feet before dropping her again with a crisp right hand to close out the show at the 3:54 mark.

The Brit is now 13-0 as a pro-MMA fighter and 8-0 in the PFL, with all eight of those fights ending inside the distance.

Ditcheva won the 2023 PFL Europe Women’s flyweight tournament by stopping Valentina Scatizzi at the back end of last year and will now face former UFC athlete Talia Santos in the 2024 PFL final after the Brazilian beat women’s MMA pioneer Liz Carmouche via unanimous decision in the other semi-final bout at PFL 7.

There is plenty of hype surrounding the 26-year-old from Sale, Greater Manchester, who can count Jake Paul among her many fans.

YouTuber-turned-boxer Paul – who is also signed to the PFL – said on social media after Ditcheva’s win against Chelsea Hackett at PFL 4 in June: “The next MMA superstar…Dakota Ditcheva.”

Ditcheva doesn’t pay much attention to social media and was shocked to learn of Paul’s lofty praise during an interview with talkSPORT MMA a week after the Hackett fight.

“Jake posted that? I’ve not even seen that,” Ditcheva said.

“I didn’t even know he’d tweeted that… I completely missed that he even commented but that’s really nice of him.”

Before transitioning to MMA in 2021, Ditcheva was a decorated Muay Thai fighter who won gold at the 2016 IFMA World Championships in the female junior 57kg division.

Her mother, Lisa Howarth, was a multiple-time kickboxing world champion, and so immersed Ditcheva in martial arts from a young age.

In her youth, she trained in kickboxing, Muay Thai, and later Brazilian jiu-jitsu therefore moving to MMA was a natural progression.

Only one of her 13 opponents in professional MMA has made it through to the final bell against the destructive finished, the durable Paula Cristina – who fell to a unanimous decision defeat against Ditcheva in March 2022.

Meanwhile, 10 of 13 fights have ended in the opening stanza.

If Ditcheva defeats Santos in the PFL final, she will receive a whopping $1million in prize money – and she couldn’t be more excited about the prospect.

 “I dream about it all the time,” she told talkSPORT.

“I think about it all the time. For me, it’s going to happen.

“I’ve visualised it. I know it’s going to happen.

“I’m excited to get to the end of the year, get my new belt and see what the future holds after that.”