I think its highly possible that Blackbeard vs Shanks is over and Oda will hype Blackbeard with different methods not by using Shanks. Admirals are there to be used as hype tool I don't think Shanks can be used like Admirals easily in this story, he is more important than that.
Because Shanks has already a scar from Blackbeard which in Oda's story Oda doesn't return to that point again. Oden gave a scar to Kaido and their fight was over it didn't happen again. Oda doesn't like repeating the same story, he likes to surprise the viewers, that's why he can keep One Piece relevant and exciting. Aokiji also left a scar on Akainu I don't think Aokiji vs Akainu will happen again directly Aokiji will use different methods for defeating Akainu (like siding with Blackbeard), Zoro left a small scar on Kaido and Zoro's opponent is King he won't fight Kaido again. Mihawk left a scar on Zoro as well as Akainu left a scar on Luffy, I also believe Oda won't return to these fights again and again. They will surpass Mihawk and Akainu with different methods, like other people beats them and they beat the people who beat them.
If we return to why Shanks vs Blackbeard won't happen;
Oda said next year will be Shanks's year and Luffy never fought Shanks. I don't think Oda will kill Shanks without making him fight Luffy first. That would be wasting a character. There are many things about Shanks that we don't know yet and he can't show Shanks's arc if he make him die to Blackbeard.
Yes there's Ace who end up dying like that but see the differences;
- Ace wanted to make WB or Luffy PK he never wanted for himself. While Shanks is a Yonko captain and Luffy said he will fight Shanks after time skip.
- Ace never fought BB before unlike Shanks did. Ace was a new fight for Blackbeard. And Ace still didn't die to Blackbeard. Half of the fight was off paneled and Blackbeard used Ace's bounty to become a Shichibukai. He didn't kill Ace, he delivered Ace alive to Marines so Oda could highlight Ace's story in Marineford arc where Ace find the answer to live or die as he see all the people who are ready to save his life. How Oda can highlight Shanks's story if he simply dies to Blackbeard? Blackbeard isn't going to deliver Shanks to marines and Luffy won't try to save Shanks like he did with Ace. Oda also can't show all the fight between Shanks and Blackbeard even if he gave up on highlighting Shanks because he would need to highlight Blackbeard's abilities too that should be special to Luffy vs Blackbeard fight as well.
So in short there are big differences between Ace's situation and Shanks's situation. For the reasons above it would be better if Luffy fights all Yonko one by one since that was Oda's plan from the beginning, the series was about Luffy fighting Yonko later he only add Shichibukai to that list.
As for how Oda can hype Blackbeard, he can use Admirals or even revolutionary Dragon (I don't think they directly fought in Baltigo), as we know Blackbeard never fought them yet while he already fought Shanks before and scarred him and Shanks needs to fight Luffy for the story.
Because Shanks has already a scar from Blackbeard which in Oda's story Oda doesn't return to that point again. Oden gave a scar to Kaido and their fight was over it didn't happen again. Oda doesn't like repeating the same story, he likes to surprise the viewers, that's why he can keep One Piece relevant and exciting. Aokiji also left a scar on Akainu I don't think Aokiji vs Akainu will happen again directly Aokiji will use different methods for defeating Akainu (like siding with Blackbeard), Zoro left a small scar on Kaido and Zoro's opponent is King he won't fight Kaido again. Mihawk left a scar on Zoro as well as Akainu left a scar on Luffy, I also believe Oda won't return to these fights again and again. They will surpass Mihawk and Akainu with different methods, like other people beats them and they beat the people who beat them.
If we return to why Shanks vs Blackbeard won't happen;
Oda said next year will be Shanks's year and Luffy never fought Shanks. I don't think Oda will kill Shanks without making him fight Luffy first. That would be wasting a character. There are many things about Shanks that we don't know yet and he can't show Shanks's arc if he make him die to Blackbeard.
Yes there's Ace who end up dying like that but see the differences;
- Ace wanted to make WB or Luffy PK he never wanted for himself. While Shanks is a Yonko captain and Luffy said he will fight Shanks after time skip.
- Ace never fought BB before unlike Shanks did. Ace was a new fight for Blackbeard. And Ace still didn't die to Blackbeard. Half of the fight was off paneled and Blackbeard used Ace's bounty to become a Shichibukai. He didn't kill Ace, he delivered Ace alive to Marines so Oda could highlight Ace's story in Marineford arc where Ace find the answer to live or die as he see all the people who are ready to save his life. How Oda can highlight Shanks's story if he simply dies to Blackbeard? Blackbeard isn't going to deliver Shanks to marines and Luffy won't try to save Shanks like he did with Ace. Oda also can't show all the fight between Shanks and Blackbeard even if he gave up on highlighting Shanks because he would need to highlight Blackbeard's abilities too that should be special to Luffy vs Blackbeard fight as well.
So in short there are big differences between Ace's situation and Shanks's situation. For the reasons above it would be better if Luffy fights all Yonko one by one since that was Oda's plan from the beginning, the series was about Luffy fighting Yonko later he only add Shichibukai to that list.
As for how Oda can hype Blackbeard, he can use Admirals or even revolutionary Dragon (I don't think they directly fought in Baltigo), as we know Blackbeard never fought them yet while he already fought Shanks before and scarred him and Shanks needs to fight Luffy for the story.
Reasons why Blackbeard will be hyped by other characters instead of Shanks;
- Blackbeard never fought them, while he already fought Shanks before.
Yes, it's true that Blackbeard fought Fleet Admiral Sengoku + Hero Garp pre-time skip, but both of them are retired now, and now he will probably fight against the Admirals if he didn't already.
He probably defeated random marines if he decided not to strategically retreat but I doubt he fought an Admiral during the time-skip, Shanks already hyped DFless BB's power before, even compared DFless BB to Mihawk while talking with Whitebeard. Why use the same guy over and over again to hype someone, when we already know that he was already hyped by the same guy before? That would be repetitive for the story line.
- Yonko never defeated each other before, not even World's Strongest Pirate Whitebeard did it.
We have these;
- Shanks challenging WB in WB's own ship, splitting the heavens and obviously not losing the fight to WB in the end.
- Shanks stopping Kaido in an off-panel battle, and none of them reported as winner or loser of their fight, later Kaido puts Shanks on a same pedestal as prime Whitebeard, Roger, Oden and Xebec.
- Law saying other 3 Yonko fought WB for the new world territories, and they didn't lose to WB.
- Big Mom saying, she would need Elbaf army to defeat Shanks, Kaido and even WB, she shows respect to Shanks's power.
- WB not wanting to fight Kaido at Wano because he is afraid that there would be major casualties on his crew, even Marco says they considered to fight Kaido for Wano, way before even Ace joined their crew, meaning that even Prime WB without any health issues, wasn't even sure about defeating Kaido at Wano, without having major casulties on his crew.
- Kaido vs. Big Mom fighting for 1 to 3 days, and their fight ending in a stalemate, they joined forces at the end as equal partners.
In the end, no Yonko (not even strongest Whitebeard, or Kaido) defeats the other Yonko in Oda's story.
Not even Roger defeated WB or Big Mom and when Xebec was defeated, Garp helps Roger, and WB implied some people in Xebec's crew betrayed Xebec.
Will Blackbeard be an exception, which is a feat that not even ''strongest'' title holders WB or Kaido could accomplish against the other Yonko such as Big Mom or Shanks?
- Even Admirals defeated each other, and even joined Yonko.
In Oda's story, Admirals defeat each other but still not Yonko; Admiral Akainu vs. Admiral Aokiji lasted more than Big Mom vs. Kaido fight, and at the end of their fight there was a winner: Akainu.
Despite having major injuries, Admiral Akainu manages to win against another fellow Admiral after days long fight. But compared to Yonko vs. Yonko, we've no evidence that ever happened, even when Admirals are allies and they are in the same side, still we've a winner between the Admirals, but Yonko fighting each other constantly, all the time, still we don't even have a single winner Yonko amongst the countless Yonko fights we've. Not even ''strongest'' WB defeated a Yonko.
Later, Admiral Aokiji (who is near equal to Akainu) joins Yonko Blackbeard, once again it shows that Admirals are beatable for Yonko, in a sense that they hold such a power even an Admiral works for them instead of being equals.
Even before that portrayal, we've another superior portrayal; despite having countless disadvantages that WB had, Akainu still hitting WB clean when WB had a heart attack during the battle, then letting other random marines to finish him up, still WB continues to fight with Admirals, stops Kizaru, and then stops Akainu with two-shotting him, Akainu wasn't around for the next 2 chapters while WB could potentially sink the whole marineford island if not for Blackbeard killing Whitebeard, which in my opinion, was a huge L for the Admirals against a heavily nerfed Yonko, since Akainu was previously saying he wasn't going to let Whitebeard to sink the island, but after second hit, Akainu was either hiding under the ground or was KOed, he wasn't able to stop WB after that point, the same nerfed WB would have no chance against another Yonko, because we know Yonko always fight each other and their fight ends in stalemate always.
Both in Aokiji vs. Akainu fight, and heavily nerfed WB vs. Akainu fight, showed us that Admirals are beatable for Yonko and can be used to hype Yonko.
But for some reason, Oda never used another Yonko to hype another Yonko.
Another example is, Sabo and 3 Revolutionary commanders (possibly weaker commanders than Ivankov due to being commanders in the weaker seas) managed to wound Admiral Fujitora, despite Fujitora having back up from another Admiral Greenbull.
Then we've Pre-Yonko Blackbeard being able to fight equally and even wounding Fleet Admiral Sengoku, another sign for using the Admirals to hype Yonko.
And lastly, we've Yonko Blackbeard attacking Baltigo, the heart of Revolutionary Army, and forcing Revolutionaries to retreat strategically.
- Why Revolutionaries can be used to hype Blackbeard?
If Blackbeard possibly defeats the Admirals, or if he ambushes Admirals and Revolutionaries when they were fighting with each other, which could be another good story for Blackbeard reaching the King of the World status.
Rather than just having ''good guy'' Shanks fighting ''bad guy'' Blackbeard, with a boring casual story ''you are a bad guy Blackbeard, Shanks will try to fight you and stop you, but will fail so Luffy can do the job'',
I don't think that will serve the story and it would be too predictable, Oda never likes to be predictable, that doesn't make a good story.
- Shanks must fight Luffy for the story.
For couple of reasons;
- Unlike Mihawk vs. Zoro, Luffy vs. Shanks never happened before. While Zoro actually fought Mihawk before, and even got scarred by him. And unlike Shanks, Mihawk even trained Zoro for 2 frigging years.
Shanks never trained Luffy at all, while Zoro is knowing Mihawk's personality and his behaviours as well as he knows his own captain Luffy's personality and his behaviours due to spending 2 years with him. Luffy never spend that much of time with Shanks, he doesn't know him that well, as Zoro knows Mihawk.
Luffy and Shanks never fought each other yet. That's an important detail.
Will Oda really end Shanks's story, without even having him fighting with Luffy first? That doesn't make any sense.
It make sense that Mihawk vs. Zoro might never happen, for the two reasons that I mentioned above, but Luffy vs. Shanks must happen. Shanks's abilities can't be revealed in a half off-panel fight with Blackbeard, that automatically would also reveal Blackbeard's powers before Luffy vs. Blackbeard fight, which doesn't serve the story well.
What will be Shanks's reasons to fight Luffy?
It could be similar to WB-Ace story line.
-Shanks first comes to warn WB about BB.
-Shanks then goes to warn World Government about BB.
-WB doesn't listen Shanks, and they fight. BB ends as victorious, first defeats Ace, then steals WB's power and WB's territories, status as a Yonko.
-World Government doesn't listen Shanks, and they fight. BB ends as victorious, defeats Admirals, steals World Government's power, and status as a King of the World.
Or, Shanks warns Luffy about BB, Luffy doesn't listen, and they fight, similar to Jinbe vs. Luffy fight.
Or Shanks learns what is the void century and learning and revealing that after finding Laugh Tale will create a big war and chaos around the world and Shanks would try to stop Luffy from reaching Laugh Tale so there wouldn't be a big battle around the world, if Shanks is a peace keeper he would want to stop that.
Another theory is that, Shanks is a Gorousei member, and he will fight Luffy after revealing his true face. I don't know if that will happen or not, but either way, Oda can find a good reason for Luffy vs. Shanks to happen.
- If so, Dragon's powers was never revealed too, why he should fight and used as a hype tool for Blackbeard?
That's also a fair point, however,
I think this is the difference here;
- Luffy never really cared about Dragon, and he never wanted to fight or surpass him.
- Luffy actually wanted to be like Shanks, wanted to surpass him and fight him.
Luffy never wanted to fight or surpass Dragon. He is Luffy's father, not even mention, one is a revolutionary and another is a pirate. They have different goals. Once Blackbeard achives the ultimate power in the World Government, which Blackbeard gave signals for that in Chapter 956, when he said rather than leaving it to the marines, he can take it for himself, after that he can aim for Xebec's goal, which was being the King of the World. And the next chapters name is literally ''Ultimate'' with also showing Blackbeard as one of the Yonko.
And Revolutionary Dragon is the guy that who can try to stop Blackbeard for doing that. Not even mention, this would also hype Luffy vs. Blackbeard more, if Luffy comes to that fight after defeating Shanks, and if Blackbeard comes to that fight after defeating the Admirals, and Dragon.
There would be no doubt that these two would be the two strongest people on the story at that point.
For all the reasons above, the story demands that Luffy should fight Shanks, while Blackbeard, if he has the same goal as Xebec, needs to face either Admirals or Dragon.
Build-up for Blackbeard Pirates vs. Revolutionary Army.
As we know, it all started with Burgess vs. Sabo,

Burgess (Blackbeard pirates) was aiming for Luffy, but Sabo (Revolutionary saves him)

Could it be a similar plot? Blackbeard pirates were going to finish SH pirates after a tough battle, but Revolutionaries sacrifices themselves for Luffy and fights Blackbeard pirates? Possible.

Later Burgess draws the Blackbeard pirates at the heart of the Revolutionary Base, Baltigo. And a full scale battle happens, although we don't know the details, that if Blackbeard and Dragon fought directly or not.

That fight looked like a win for Sabo, but as a result of it, Burgess reveals Baltigo and Revolutinary army takes a huge blow from Blackbeard pirates.

''But by the time the Marines and Cipher Pol arrived...The Blackbeard Pirates had already leveled the settlement to the ground.''

''To declare war, against the Celestial Dragons!!''
If Blackbeard aims to attack Celestial Dragons, like Xebec did in the past, then Blackbeard's and Dragon's goal is essentially the same, either they will fight for it, or they will join forces. I don't see the latter since Blackbeard would rather want to eliminate the Revolutionaries, who are fundamentally against the Piracy around the world.

The battle between Blackbeard pirates and Revolutionaries continues with the different characters this time, Blackbeard's underling Pinkbeard gets captured because of Revolutionary commanders Bello Betty, Morley, Karasu and Lindbergh.

Obviously, as Betty said, Blackbeard isn't going to seek revenge for Pinkbeard, but the news will surely trouble him.
If Blackbeard's operations in other seas are also being interrupted by the Revolutionaries too, not only by the Marines and Cipher pol.
And notice how Blackbeard's debut after time skip, he specifically mentions Revolutionaries and the Marines first, not Yonko Kaido and Yonko Big mom,

For Blackbeard, it could be that Revolutionaries and the Marines might be the first target, not other Yonko.
Later, in the next chapters, Blackbeard still puts the Marines and Revolutionaries in his first to do list, not the other Yonko as he mentions about the Marines again.

What are your thoughts about this?
@MonsterKaido @ODIAK D.TSEGNORTS @Red Admiral @Seraphoenix @Arrow @Echizen_Jo_Ndule @BleakAsh @WesMidnight @Guiding_Thunder @Vinsmoke D. Zolo @Tejas @Chaves @Lukegranders @Bango🍅 @rerere @Legendaryconquer#1 @Adam-san @Ishin @The Unworthy @Ninjashadow0209 @notAfanboy @Shiroyru @Bullet @Trafalgar_D_Law @uyuu @Jackteo @Desolate Smaug @Ichiro Miyata @qwe @Gol D. Bullet @Luffy is the mc @TheKnightOfTheSea @park_min young @Big D. Kaios @Hanzo hattori @Kromage911 @Rmstorm @XGoldrogeRX @Rosella.Fiamingo @Red Admiral @Olimaat @Irregular @DiedrichKira @Jailer @NotTommy @notAfanboy @Z-Saber @Emperor etc etc
Last edited: