I remember one fighter saying being in there with him was unlike anything he experienced before in all his years of fighting and training. It was like sharing the cage with some kind of ferocious animal who didn’t even seem human.
My buddy did a fight camp with him. Said he would wake up super early to take care of his livestock and chores and then come into the gym and throw everyone around. My buddy is a solid 230lbs, fought on TUF, would smash 99 percent of the population, said Dan is just a Buffalo.
Was lucky enough to attend his last fight in Manchester. Despite cheering for Bisping it was cool as fuck to see Hendo make his final walk to the cage.
On the Pride scoring system he definitely won. But on the 10 point must scoring system they use and in particular, at that time period, the lack of 10-8 rounds, I think Bisping won 3-2.
When your eyes tell you one thing and the score card disagrees – it means there’s either a problem with the system or the judges interpretation of it.
I know a guy who actually quit watching MMA because of that decision.
To my knowledge he hasn’t watched an event since.
That fight will forever be known as “The Robbery”.