Aoba is definitely winning this. Even though his opponent did some solid pinning, Aoba landed a lot more impressive and decisive strikes.
Exactly because of that and two of the reasons. I don’t care how much I like grappling(Sambo bros unit) in Mixed Martial Arts.
If you cannot deal respectable or consistent damage to your opponent after establishing top control twice you do not deserve anything more than getting a point for the takedown imo
On top of that not only are you 100% on the mark about Aoba having solid offense but his defensive performance was nearly perfect this entire match. On the feet he never let anything significant get through and even when he was in a shitty position on bottom, he was
still able to retaliate not once(leg sub threats), but
TWICE after the bicycle kick!
I know the Japanese scoring system is probably different from America’s but there’s no logical reason why Aoba doesn’t get a unimous decision