A lot of you guys are making this fight sound extremly one sided. The first round went to Kondo without a doubt. The second round could have gone either way. The third was all Henderson. I would have probably given a slight, very slight edge to Kondo, but by no stretch of the imagination did Kondo dominate any aspect of the fight. It was a very close call.
It wasn't worse than Randleman/Bas.
It's like that time Hendo fought Ninja. He fought hard in the begining
round. Towards the middle, he got owned by ground control from
Ninja, but really couldn't hurt him. Then in the 3rd round, Hendo came
back. Not with a flurry this time, but several takedown scores. Pride
does have a weird system of scoring and Hendo played his cards right
in the judges eyes.
TTT
Kondo deserved the nod.
Dan had good moments, but Kondo did more overall.
Word around is that Dan was'nt 100%. Sick earlier in the week.
He wasn't sicker earlier in the week, he was sick all that day..he went out to the ring looking pretty green and with no energy at all.
I thought Dan did more to 'finish the fight' which is the most important thing to Pride. Kondo never came as close to finishing Dan as Dan did with the guillotine. Dan got more takedowns. Dan also landed knees from north-south and from the bottom, elbows from the half-guard, punches from the mount etc. Kondo put up a good fight and is a well-rounded fighter, but I thought Dan showed more intent to finish.