Taila Santos wants PFL rematch vs. Dakota Ditcheva

Taila Santos wants a rematch with Dakota Ditcheva, but she wasn’t holding her breath on meeting her once again in a PFL tournament.

Santos (22-4) and Ditcheva (14-0) were the two finalists for last year’s PFL women’s flyweight tournament. It was a big fight for the promotion, as it pitted a former UFC title challenger against one of the best undefeated talents today. In the end, Ditcheva walked away with a finish, the 2024 PFL title, and the $1 million prize.

“Every fighter need to know how to handle a loss because a loss leaves you a lot more to learn than a win,” Santos told Hablemos MMA in Portuguese. “Defeats give you the chance to reflect and see what you need to improve. So I’m grateful for that loss. I can’t stay down and sad after winning three fights and then suffering a loss.

“As you said, that loss was very important to prepare and analyze what I need to improve on so I can evolve for this next season.”

Santos, who fought for a UFC title in 2020 in a close fight against champion Valentina Shevchenko, admits Ditcheva was a tough adversary. But on top of having a tough test, she also doesn’t feel like she showed up that night in the 2024 PFL women’s flyweight final.

“She’s very tall, and that was difficult. It was the first time I fought with someone that tall,” Ditcheva said. “Now, speaking about myself, I honestly wasn’t able to find my rhythm in that fight. I’m just speaking about me, not her. Athletes will understand me in the sense that you don’t always train well. You have bad days. Sometimes you do to the gym and you just don’t train well. That’s what happened that night. I couldn’t find myself. I wasn’t there in the fight.”

Santos, 31, meets fellow Brazilian Juliana Velasquez (13-3) in the opening round of this year’s tournament. She wasn’t shocked to see Ditcheva out of the 2025 tournament. Although her absence killed her chances of a potential rematch in the near future, Santos would like to run things back with her eventually.

“It didn’t surprise me,” Santos said when asked about Ditcheva not participating in the tournament. “I did think that maybe she wasn’t going to be in the tournament, trying to do other type of negotiations with PFL. I don’t know why she’s not in the tournament. Most champions usually return and participate again in the next tournaments. But even though she’s not in the tournament, people can still rematch her.

“PFL also does super fights, so maybe we can do a fight between us two again,” Santos said. “I think it will be very interesting to do a super fight, at the end of the year, December. It’s interesting that she’s not in the tournament, but we can rematch in a super fight.”