Dakota Ditcheva has revealed she suffered fresh fractures to both of her hands during her recent unanimous decision victory against Denise Kielholtz at PFL New York. The injury marks a recurrence of significant hand problems for the British fighter, who had only recently recovered from similar issues.
Ditcheva, 28, had been sidelined since July 2025 due to a broken left hand, only for the other hand to fracture five months later. Despite these past setbacks, she dominated Kielholtz in her return fight earlier this month. However, Ditcheva disclosed that she fought most of the bout with both hands broken.
"I broke my hands in the fight. I could feel it from the second I started the second round," Ditcheva stated on YouTube. "I didn't tell my corner. I didn't tell anybody. I didn't show it this time, and I didn't actually tell anybody until I got out of the cage."
She is currently in splints while awaiting a decision from her surgeon on the next steps for her recovery, which is expected within days. Ditcheva's win extended her professional undefeated streak to 16 fights.
Ditcheva explained that one of the injuries is to a hand she opted against having surgery for last year. The other is a smaller fracture on a different finger that proved less resilient. "The good thing is I have no new breaks. It's just the hand that wasn't operated on that I broke at the end of last year," she added. "I was told that if I didn't go ahead with surgery at that time, there was a possibility it could break again. I took the risk in not doing the surgery because I was hoping it would hold strong, and it didn't. So therefore I'm paying the price for it now and I will be out for a little bit."