Heavily translation dependent but rn Rayleigh definitely implied he could've defeated Blackbeard in his prime.
"I'm old now, so I wouldn't be able to defeat the current Blackbeard".
The "so" is in bold as it's specifically telling us that the only reason Rayleigh can't defeat BB is because he's old. He's implying that in his prime he would've won.
So now we know that Prime Rayleigh could've saved the SHs from Kuma and Sentomaru whilst holding off Kizaru, and he could've defeated Yonko Blackbeard on Amazon Lily.
Prime Rayleigh would be a high top-tier if he were still around.
I don’t think w should take those statements literally.
Ray doesn’t have a clue how strong BB is right now exactly. Doesn’t know his gura mastery his tricks etc.
But Ray was clearly in the top tier area back then and in a general area of power where defeating an other top tier is somewhat possible. (Yonko/Admiral)
Maybe BB is not at his peak right now and Ray could have defeated him in Prime or BB would have extreme diff him etc.
You don’t need to be stronger than BB to be able to defeated him or have a solid chance.
Put BM in Ray situation and she could have said she would be able to defeat him.
