Tomorrow night the PFL Playoffs kickoff in Nashville where four fighters will punch their tickets to the World Championships later this year. The heavyweights as well as the women’s flyweight divisions will be taking center stage. In the featured flyweight fight, top seeded Dakota Ditcheva (12-0) takes on Jena Bishop (7-1).
Starting with Ditcheva, it’s clear that she’s become a star for the PFL. She made her debut with the promotion back in 2022 when she was just 5-0. Since making her debut, she’s gone 7-0 with seven finishes. This was her first year competing in the regular season and she’s been incredible scoring first round finishes over Lisa Mauldin and Chelsea Hackett.
Standing across from her tomorrow night is Jena Bishop. Bishop also fought Hackett this year and like Ditcheva, Bishop scored a first round finish. From there, she took on the incredibly tough Taila Santos and they had an incredibly close fight where Santos won by split decision. However, Bishop’s win at PFL 1 2024 was enough to earn her this shot in the playoffs.
PFL Playoffs
In the first playoff matchup of the evening tomorrow night, we are going to see a battle between former UFC title challenger Taila Santos (21-3) and former UFC title challenger as well as current Bellator flyweight champion Liz Carmouche (22-7).
Starting with Taila Santos, her departure from the UFC was a surprising one. Back in June 2022, she lost a very close decision against Valentina Shevchenko for the title. After that, she lost a close decision against Erin Blanchfield and then she decided she wanted a change of scenery.
She made her debut for the PFL back in April and scored a first round submission. That was followed by her very tough decision win over Bishop which earned her nine points and it was good enough to secure the two seed in the playoffs. That’s led her to this fight against the Bellator champion.
Liz Carmouche like Santos left the UFC shortly after a title shot. In fact, Carmouche left for Bellator right after her title shot and it’s been a great move for her. Carmouche went 7-0 in Bellator and became the flyweight champion while defending the title three times successfully.
After the PFL purchased Bellator, it was announced that they would have a women’s flyweight season. Carmouche came over and faced Juliana Velasquez for a third time in her first fight. She won that fight by a decision and then she took on Kana Watanabe for a second time.
Watanabe was in full control of the fight and was less than ten seconds away from securing her spot in the playoffs when Carmouche pulled off a miracle arm bar with eight seconds left in the fight. That submission win punched Carmouche’s ticket to the PFL Playoffs and this fight with Taila Santos.