Nah there’s no downplay justified here, the fact that Kaido and BM were Yonkos with nothing but their basic DF powers is fucking impressive as hell.
Without Awakening, BM built a whole country and built the best intel network while Kaido rose to the ranks as the WSC. With Awakening the current balance would be broken and it would just be the Niko (Two Emperors) or something like that.