One Piece

I think Pink was also out of shape. I feel he got chubby to look more like a baby and make his wife happy.

Well Big Mom seems to have some heavy hitters. Didn't Bobin burn down an entire country by himself?

Straw Hats have a tendency to get dragged into fights where they're handicapped. Although it's a contrivance, the alternative is an even stricter Sorting Algorithm of Evil to create progressive challenges, so it's a trade off.

Zoro in particular has had exactly one fight that was neither a handicap nor a curbstomp, that being Kaku.

Occasionally he has one-on-one's that are handicaps AND curbstomps, like with Hatchan.

Rereading that fight actually made me feel better about him beating Hyouzou so easily, in fact. Whatever the difference between Hachi and Hyouzou is, I... kinda get the impression the difference between about-to-faint East Blue Zoro and healthy New World Zoro is bigger.

Zoro didn't have a handicap against Mr. 1, did he? Unless you're counting Mr. 1's matchup advantage vs. swordsmen as a handicap for Zoro.

But yeah, other than those two, Zoro hasn't had a close battle while starting at peak condition.

Zoro had the handicap of not actually being able to hit Mr. 1. Once he overcomes it, Mr. 1 goes down in one hit.

Zoro's most even fight after Kaku was probably actually Ohm at Skypiea, who was able to score some good hits with his weird shapeshifting cloud sword thing.

edited 11th Feb '16 4:33:22 PM by HamburgerTime

Yea, but then Zoro one shots him once he learns how to use his Razor Wind technique.

That's what kinda bugs me about Zoro's fights; Oda can't seem to give him an interesting one without handicapping him. Its probably to create "tension", but then it makes his opponents look worse when he can win anyway despite those handicaps. Adding to this, when he isn't handicapped, its almost always a Curb-Stomp Battle.

I think Oda just can't do sword fights well, because I don't see this problem with Luffy, Sanji or any other Strawhat.

Plus it contributes to the crowd who insist that Zoro is stronger than Luffy even though we're clearly not supposed to actually think that.

If Zoro were real, and you told him you thought he was stronger than Luffy, I get the impression he'd bonk you on the head with the blunt end of his sword like he did to those two Baroque agents who pretended to be a little kid and a nun.

edited 11th Feb '16 7:15:09 PM by HamburgerTime

He had an interesting fight with Kuma.

I would think the Doflamingo fight would've settled that if nothing else did. I honestly don't see Zoro winning against Doffy, except for matching his obscene ability to take damage.

edited 11th Feb '16 7:14:07 PM by sgamer82

Its really just the nature of Zoro's fighting style I think; him, Luffy and Sanji are probably pretty close in terms of strength, but Zoro's a swordsman, swords are designed to do damage and end a fight as quickly as possible...and Zoro carries three of them :V

So I guess it would make sense he'd one shot his opponents a lot, slashing someone across their torso is pretty fucking lethal compared to the blunt damage Luffy and Sanji use, especially since everyone is Made of Iron in this series.

It makes sense, but it doesn't really make his fights that interesting to watch outside of Zoro taking a beating before the inevitable. Its why I like everyone else's fights more. Pica was an interesting matchup though; no question Zoro was stronger, but he had to actually get to the guy to deliver to the coup de grace.

I've wondered how Sanji vs. Pica might go. On the one hand Pica's probably less vulnerable to blunt attacks, but on the other Sanji has better Observation Haki than Zoro and as such could likely find the real body faster.

Plus it was undeniably cool seeing him cut a mountain sized Goliath like it was butter. Also it helps that the point in that fight was not just beating Pica but to stop him from smashing Riku in time.

edited 11th Feb '16 7:29:18 PM by slimcoder

I'd imagine since Sanji's strength isn't as emphasized as Luffy's or Zoro's, he would have outsmarted Pica to exposing himself, then Diable Jambe'd his face in.

I did quite like that Pica was a Puzzle Boss rather than another regular opponent. I found that battle to be Zoro's second most entertaining fight, after Kaku (with Ryuma as a very close third). It was fun watching Zoro have to strategize when his regular "just cut everything" and "cut everything harder" tactics didn't pan out.

edited 11th Feb '16 8:27:28 PM by MileRun

Zoro vs. Pica was definitely a highlight of Dressrosa. Pica may not have been as strong as Zoro, but Zoro needed to ask for help to beat him. That's never happened before.

Skypiea was before Enies Lobby, btw. Ohm was a decent fight for Zoro, while Enel was out of his league because Armament haki wasn't a thing yet.

I think very few people would have had the necessary powerset to take down Pica solo. Or at least to take down Pica as big as he was.

Depends entirely on how much of his body they can destroy at once to pin point him. Most of the crew have that potential, even outside of the Monster Trio.

I think they all could put a big dent in him, sure, but what it took was for Zoro to cut the torso off of the body, and then for a King Punch to shatter the upper half into manageable chunks, and the King Punch is shown to be one of the strongest single attacks in the series thus far.

I'm thinking it would need to be Issho, Kuzan, Sakazuki, or Whitebeard. Even Blackbeard or Borsalino would probably need some help.

The king punch was just for cleanup. I presume that if collateral damage wasn't an issue, each of the Straw Hats would have a way to get him out of the statue, either by breaking it up (Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, Franky), outsmarting Pica (Nami, Usopp, Robin), or pulling off a weird trick (Brook's hypnotism, Chopper's Horn Point).

It's Pica's haki armor that I see the weaker Straw Hats struggling against. Even Sanji has trouble with armament haki experts.

edited 12th Feb '16 12:17:11 PM by MileRun

Ah, you're right, i was forgetting that sequence of events. I thought the king punch was what isolated him into a small chunk of stone, but Zoro did that all by himself.

There goes my argument, then :-P

As for the Senior Execs' strength, I'd put Diamante and Trebol slightly above a healthy Franky, Vergo as even with Sanji and Pica varies depending on how much stone he's got.

Gladius seemed more impressive than any of them to me, especially Diamante, but he wasn't particularly durable; one Tap on the Head dropped him.