Can I ask you a question? and please answer me HONESTLY... from your point of view.. regardless of your bias or passion or whatever scenario you have imagined... okay?
Do you remember what people in manga community called Pageone as? after Sanji was shown the next day with Law/Usopp and Franky wanting to go to bathhouse without any worry???
Do you remember how the community looked at Pageone???
Now... forget about MANGA READERS... and go and see reactors who are ONLY ANIME WATCHERS... not manga readers... go and see how they actually viewed both of PageOne and Sanji...
And you will notice the difference and you will notice how Toei did a BETTER JOB in hyping Pageone as a LEGITIMATE strong individual and in turn... the guy who dominated the fight (Sanji) looked EVEN BETTER...
Zoro vs Killer is going to make Killer look very good (they should) for the sake of Zoro... because if they made him look bad... and just by one distraction from Gyokimaru we have Zoro receive a fatal blow....? that would make Zoro look SOOO BAD... The anime job is to flesh these fights more and make it MORE INTENSE
To answer your question, I would like to say that Page one was basically introduced as one of the Top Tiers of Beast Pirates who was casually hanging out with Drake (a supernova) and was one of the Flying Six. That much was already a hype enough for him. If not, even Law another Supernova stated that he was indeed one of the Big Gun of Beast Pirates. Furthermore an ancient zoan DF was a cherry on the top for the hype train he got from Oda.
Honestly, imo those things were enough of a portrayal for him to be considered a legitimate strong opponent. And Oda used him as a perfect hype tool for Sanji and his new found RS power of stealth black. He even let the ending be suspenseful (except for Page Oneโ scream). In the Fire festival it would have been much more better time to reveal that the guy in the mask (O-Soba) did indeed took out one of the flying six.
The last part was my own head canon though. Lol.
I get it that many people assumed P1 to be a fodder material since Sanji basically flung him around after RS but it was their own personal Head Canon.
Toei did good on making the battle last longer cause not everyone who doesnโt follow manga can accumulate many details from the single page worth of battle. They did however messed it up with Sanji making a run for it. It didnโt make look Sanji any better. It killed off all the hype from the RS and Sanji.
โHaving more friends are good but having fewer enemies is also an advantage.โ -Sanji
So, that was a lie..?? The fight should have, heck even the episode should have ended after Shooting star kick.