It was not a thrilling performance, but Keito “Kate Lotus” Oyama earned her sixth win in her past seven fights tonight at Rizin Fighting Federation: “Landmark Vol. 16” in Nagasaki, Japan. Oyama narrowly edged out teen prospect Noeru “Noel” Narita in a featured 49kg super atomweight bout.

The Oyama-Narita clash, which featured very little action throughout, was part of the ongoing “invisible” tournament to crown a new Rizin FF Women’s Super Atomweight Champion. Oyama will now move on, but she will likely be a significant underdog against all of the remaining competitors.

The southpaw Oyama (11-8-0) landed jabs early in the opening round and Narita (4-3-0) replied with leg kicks and an overhand right until Oyama pinned her against the fence. That was the extent of the action in the first round, and Oyama opened the second stanza with two kicks before Narita took her down into full guard. Narita mounted minimal offence from top position, but she did hold Oyama down for a significant portion of the round.

In round three, Oyama targeted Narita’s lead leg with kicks and the 18-year-old responded with another takedown. Once again, Narita was inactive from the top and the fighters were stood up. Both women landed strong punches during the final 15 seconds of the fight, but that sort of urgency had been missing during the previous 14-plus minutes.

The first judge scored the fight 29-28 for Narita, who burst into tears as soon as the score was read. They changed from happy tears to those of sadness when the remaining scores of 29-28 and 30-27 for Oyama were read out, and Oyama took the Split Decision win. Oyama’s lone defeat in her past seven fights came in March when she was outpointed by Deep champion Saori Oshima at Rizin FF 52, but this was easily her weakest performance in the past two years.