I'm very let down by this North American offering by Pride. It'll be good to see Fedor fight again and the Shogon/Randleman and Vitor/Hendo fights should be fun to watch, but still very lackluster.
It's funny because I feel the same way about Filho.
One thing that most impresses me about Kang is how poorly his MMA career started out. Guy was sub-.500 after his first fifteen fights with most of those losses coming by submission. He hasn't lost since, and has become one of the better submission guys at that weight. He has a ton of heart, learns from his mistakes, and has been tested. Not sure you can say that about Filho yet.
I see Kang-Filho going a lot how Shogun-Lil Nog went. Defensive boxing and only being able to finish an opponent with submissions just isn't enough to be the best of a Pride weight class anymore. I feel BTT is starting to fall behind the times.
Filho has beaten Minowa, Yuki Kondo, Shoji twice (4 years ago so Shoji was better), Matsui, Amar Suloev, Sakurai, Ninja Rua, and Ryo Chonan. There was very good wins in that group.
His run has been easily more impressive than Kang's, IMO. His two most notable wins were against Ninja and Suloev, who Filho also beat.
Filho's had better competition than Kang, sure, but the vast majority of the guys you mentioned are past their prime, or B-level fighters with a lot of losses on their record, and precious few wins against Pride's A-class fighters. So it's not like he's had great competition either.
And it should be noted Kang handled Ninja and Suloev more easily than Filho did.
But I guess this will all get decided November 5th.
as a side note, it looks like B.J. Penn tore some abdominable muscles in the fight with Hughes that diminished his breathing capacity. Gotta wonder how that fight turns out without the freak injury
