He had flames.
All of you keep telling me how it's a fish fruit and that ultimately it turns into a dragon. How is this different from human nika fruit with 2 stages?
If Kaido had a "true" awakening he would have used it. He liked a good fight, there's no way he didn't use his awakening and miss the opportunity to use it when Luffy was toying with him. It would be exceptionally bad writing by Oda at this point. Besides the Nika fruit is clearly the strongest from a plot perspective. Don't get your hopes up for a rematch.
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Zoro doesn't always take Ls, so by default this is false.