Ditcheva

Dakota Ditcheva says she expects social media abuse to only get worse as she continues her fighting career.

The 27-year-old is fast becoming one of the most recognisable female faces in MMA and she has more than 300,000 followers on Instagram.

Ditcheva is used to going viral for her knockouts, but as calls grow for social media platforms and governments to do more to protect users, specifically female athletes, Ditcheva says he has stopped reading comments on her posts.

“[Hate] is a given in this sport, which is so upsetting to have to accept that and be prepared for that as a sports athlete and it’s something I’ve kind of been training myself for,” Ditcheva tells BBC Sport.

“My mum is constantly making sure I’m not reading certain things and preparing me for it getting worse and me avoiding it. I’m lucky I can speak to my parents and siblings.”

Ditcheva has spoken openly in the past about the sexualisation she faces on social media and recently had a man contact her mother claiming they were in love.

“I had a certain person who started messaging my mum and saying we’d been speaking, and that I liked their post which meant that we were together and in love, and it got really obsessive,” Ditcheva says.

“It kind of freaked me out and it got really intense, the type of stuff they were typing. I was lucky I had my mum who helped me deal with that and kind of explain what these people are going to be doing.

“This is not something we’re born to understand, and born to put up with these strange occurrences all the time, we’re just normal people living normal lives and getting worried about stuff.”

When Dakota Ditcheva became the first British woman to win an MMA world title, she had no idea of the frustration that would follow.

After the 26-year-old’s historic win over Taila Santos in the PFL flyweight final – her fourth victory in a golden 2024 – she had all the momentum.

Congratulations poured in from icons of women’s MMA, including Amanda Nunes, Cris Cyborg and Joanna Jedrzejczyk, but soon the narrative would develop.

The question starting to form on everybody’s lips after that career-high moment in November was “what’s next?”.

Ditcheva was ready to fight anyone, but the dominant way in which she had dispatched her opponents – including three first-round stoppages and one in the second round – meant there were no worthy challengers left in the promotion.

“Obviously, with me walking through them last year it’s made it difficult,” Ditcheva tells BBC Sport.

“It’s definitely frustrating. I did so well last year – I fought in the cage four times and obviously the last one was a big one and drew a lot of attention, but now I felt like my momentum had kind of dropped off.

“Santos was the top girl in the division and the fact I walked through her so easily is another thing which made this year so difficult. They [the PFL] didn’t know which direction to put me in.”