One simple Question. What kept Luffy in the game after losing to Kaido in the second round Haki or devil fruit?
Let's see if you can give an honest answer to this.
That is such an unfair question because Luffy essentially lost the second round due to distraction.
Luffy had no trouble keeping up with even Kaido's drunken mode even before Awakening. He got reincarnated due to awakening, a cheap trick which may or may not happen. Hopefully it doesn't because otherwise Luffy is essentially immortal and well...fuck this manga then.
But even after Nika Reincarnation, Kaido still called Nika cheap trick and then sent Luffy flying using his Haki.
Nika brought Luffy back but take Luffy's CoC and Ryou away and Luffy would probably do zero damage to Kaido.
Take Nika away and Luffy still has ability to badly fuck up Kaido.
Meaning majority of Luffy's fire power comes from his Haki output.
Now all Lucci is doing is matching power of Luffy's basic Nika punch...not some named attack or bajrang gun but basic punch without even CoC..
Idk why I am supposed to be impressed by that unless standards are very low.
I guess good for Lucci..he pulled solid YC3 level feat there.