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Dakota Ditcheva and Johnny Eblen are set to be a part of history as the PFL recently announced their inaugural events in Africa, which will be headlined by two title fights. The events are scheduled to take place at GrandWest Arena in Cape Town, South Africa on Jul. 26.
PFL will be hosting back-to-back cards as they launch PFL Africa with the first round of their heavyweight and bantamweight tournaments. The promotion's latest expansion is headed by reigning heavyweight Super Fights champion Francis Ngannou.
Following the PFL Africa portion, PFL Champions Series: Road to Dubai will commence and is expected to feature five bouts including two title fights as the headliners. After winning the 2024 women's flyweight world championship, Ditcheva returns to the SmartCage to take on Sumiko Inaba, who is coming off back-to-back wins.
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In the main event, Eblen will take on Costello Van Steenis in a middleweight title clash. The undefeated Bellator middleweight champion will be competing for the first time since last October, when he earned a unanimous decision win over Fabian Edwards.
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Check out the official poster for PFL's inaugural Champions Series event in Africa featuring Dakota Ditcheva and Johnny Eblen below:
Dakota Ditcheva opens up about difficulty in finding her an opponent
Dakota Ditcheva recently shared her thoughts on facing hardship in finding her next opponent in the PFL after winning last year's women's flyweight tournament.
While speaking to MMA Junkie's Mike Bohn, Ditcheva mentioned that the PFL booked their contenders in the 2025 tournament, which resulted in a lengthy process to find a worthy opponent to challenge her. She said:
"I get it, it's hard for PFL. They put all the girls in the tournament and then, now they need to find someone that's gonna kind of give me a good competition. They can't give me someone that's just kind of signed to PFL and not really have that much experience... I just beat [Taila] Santos very easily...It just put them in a difficult position."
Check out Dakota Ditcheva's comments below:
