I don't think so. Professional dota revolves around different things than pub dota. Batrider is excellent for pro dota because once you grab someone they're grabbed until the end of the ult even if he gets stunned and he has better mobility. On the pub side, you don't have to worry as much about people tp'ing in immediately. He's very good at killing solo heroes quickly in a way that batrider is not but since the pro scene is focused around team ganking, Batrider is much better suited in that scene. He's faster and he has a stronger disable if he's being used to disable for teammates rather than expecting to do the damage.
I don't think that means he's the better hero. He's just better suited for use in that scene.
And frankly any hero is likely to hit the pro meta at some point. Someone will use a strat that needs Pudge and suddenly he'll be FOTM.
Dendi still picks up Pudge when the team comp calls for it and generally when he does, he has moderate to high success with the hero. This can mostly be put down to his game sense and playstyle and less down to the hero itself I would say, but he, like any mid game ganker, provides map control and space for your team, which is always important. I think the main reason pros don't pick Pudge up is because he falls off pretty hard in the late game and aside from tank, if he doesn't get tons of kills to get his strength stacks up, he can't do much. Also in pro games its a lot harder to pick people off, because they have incredible positioning, map awareness and tp reaction time, which makes it far more difficult for Pudge to snowball.
Like I said though, Dendi has continued to play Pudge sporadically for a long time now, just not commonly, only when the team comp suits it.
