How was Zoro more close to Luffy pre time skip? Now he negs main fishman boss underwater, scars Kaido and unlocks the same ability as him.
It's just based on how Oda is portraying both characters in this arc
Zoro goes up against Kaido, uses everything he got with Asura (he said it so himself) and is able to scar Kaido (a small scar compared to Oden) and get little recognition for it
Now Oda is putting Luffy going solo against Kaido, on base, and he is being able to trade blows and keep up with Kaido
While Zoro is struggling a little bit to keep up with King
So in a way, right now Luffy is doing better 1v1 against Kaido than Zoro is doing against King
Neg diffing Hody before he took the drugs doesn't really compare to defeating him in the end of the arc, and Zoro could still do it no doubt, Hody was trash anyway
but we're seeing right now that Oda is portraying Luffy way better at dealing with Kaido than Zoro, and showing Zoro struggling against King
I wished Oda made Zoro closer to Luffy, but it just isn't the case anymore
Before Wano we could argue yes, because Zoro is fighting King and is going to defeat him, better than Luffy defeated Katakuri, but since it appears Oda is gonna give Luffy the W for taking down Kaido...