Over the past couple years, a new generation of women have emerged on Japan’s MMA scene, a new generation that in many ways has already overtaken their predecessors. This can be seen on all levels, i.e. Arisa Matsuda dominating Mika Nagano, Ayaka Watanabe KO’ing Mina Kurobe, and in Seika Izawa defeating Ayaka Hamasaki. Along with Izawa, one fighter who has come to best represent this new generation is Saori Oshima, who earlier this year was dubbed “Little Giant”, a simple yet seemingly perfect description of a fighter, who while certainly little, standing at 4’11 (149cm) and able to fight at 97lbs (44kg), has proven to be a force to be reckoned with across several divisions. Something she will look to reinforce this weekend, when she steps into the ring tomorrow at Rizin 43.
Oshima vs Salt, aka David vs Goliath
While she may be a little giant, this Saturday when she steps into the ring at Rizin 43, it’ll look more like David versus Goliath, since her opponent will be more than half a foot taller with a significant reach and weight advantage. In fact, outside of some Gabi Garcia and King Reina fights, this will be the biggest size disparity in a women’s bout in Rizin history. That being said, despite Salt being Oshima’s biggest opponent to date, this is not something new for the two division champion, who holds the distinction of being the shortest fighter in Rizin history. Even outside of Rizin, she’s never been taller than her opponent. It’s also worth noting that when asked, she made it clear that she will not be bulking up for this fight, joking that if she weighed 52kg, she wouldn’t be able to move. This prediction proved to be accurate when she weighed in at 105.8lb (48.1kg), roughly 10 pounds less than her opponent, who came in near the limit.
Preparing for battle
How does one prepare to face an opponent who’s half a foot taller, outweighs you, and has an 8 inch (21.5cm) reach advantage? Well for starters you find a sparring partner who’s the same size, something that Oshima was able to do at AACC. She told us that this helped create an image of what facing Salt will be like and has helped her get used to fighting a significantly taller opponent. At AACC she also has access to other high quality sparring partners like Motono, Watanabe, Huang, Sawada, and Sugimoto (who fought Salt in her pro-debut).
Outside of where she trains, the frequency of her training has also steadily increased as her children have gotten older. As you may recall, in the past Oshima has discussed the difficulties she’s faced balancing her roles as a wife, mother, and fighter. However, as her children haven gotten older this problem seems to have lessened. Gone are the days of only training 2 or 3 times a week. She is now training everyday, be it at AACC, or taking boxing lessons, going to jiu-jitsu, or rolling with other high-caliber women in the area. Nevertheless, as the fight grew nearer, her husband took the children to his parents’ house, allowing Oshima to focus 100% on her training and this fight.
How this fight came together
Whether it was when the fight was announced or when people watch the fight, people have or will undoubtedly ask why this fight was booked. Why would Oshima go to Hokkaido to fight a local fighter who will have the crowd’s support, who is taller, has longer reach, is heavier, and has proven difficult to takedown in the past? Well this obvious question has a simple answer and a complex answer.
The simple answer is that Oshima wanted the fight. Salt was scheduled to take part since she’s from Hokkaido and Rizin wanted to book locals on the card to help sell tickets. After that was decided, Rizin started looking for potential opponents and this is when Oshima made it know that she wanted the fight. She wanted it for several reasons, not least of which was that she hadn’t fought for the promotion in close to a year, so this was chance to get back in the Rizin ring. She also told us that the timing worked out, since she wanted to fight around this time anyway. As you may recall, when we spoke to Oshima back in February, she told us that she wants to fight 4 times this year and having only fought once so far she needed to fight soon to keep on track.
She also told us that it came down to the chance to fight a high caliber opponent. While Japan’s women’s divisions are growing, they are still relatively small and are made all the smaller when you realize that Oshima doesn’t want to fight her teammates at AACC, where a large number of top fighters train, fighters like Hamasaki, Rena, Motono, Sawada, and Watanabe. She further explained, that if she were to limit herself to one weight division, she’d be shrinking her pool of potential opponents even more and since she wants to fight talented fighters, champions like Salt, moving up in weight doesn’t bother her.
The complex answer is more mysterious. As you may recall, Oshima has some big goal set for 2024 and she won’t even hint as to what it could be. All we know is that in order to set herself up for this goal, she told us she wants to fight and win 4 times this year. So far, she’s already fought and won in Black Combat, her international debut, and now she’s set to fight in RIzin, the biggest stage in Japan. While we do not know what her goal is, since winning 4 fights this year is a prerequisite, it starts to look like Oshima’s goal must be something truly big, like a showdown with Izawa, someone she told us she does want to fight, or perhaps another match outside of Japan, on an even bigger stage? Whatever it is, she has a big match, literally, this Saturday and she’s made it clear that failure isn’t an option.
How to watch
For those inside Japan, Rizin 43 will be free on Youtube and for those outside Japan, it will be on Fite TV.
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