Did he? I doubt he's close to Luffy's level right now. Did you feel the same way when Law went from getting mid diffed at best by Doflamingo to fighting Emperors after a month without training or any intense haki blooming fights? What about when Sanji got his leg fractured by a casual base Vergo and then went on to arguably mid diff the 3rd strongest member of Kaido's crew?
Those were not the "only a handful of the strongest have it" type power up lol. Acoc is arguably the current top power up. Luffy went from acoa training to then acoc. Zoro had enma to draw it out of him. What the fuck does Coby have that makes it so he can use acoc right outta the gate?
Who knows? I think that's a big part of the problem. People created headcanon around the character, so if he does something impressive now... people are going to be upset, because it doesn't line up to how they envisioned him. I've been saying for years that we don't know how strong he was (my guess was Kyros level based on their interaction). We haven't seen him fight
We know... BB was there for Board. He didn't get her. So he took Coby...
I'm struggling to do it. The time I'm thinking of was by Van der Decken, but that wasn't the only one.
He could have gotten lose any time he wanted from that lol. He was not doing that to prove a point to the fishmen. And he did eventually get lose too. Besides, he was kicking ass in those ropes too. Not just running away.
Sanji saves women. Koby saves the innocent. I don't see Sanji's situation being better. If anything, it was worse for two reasons.
1) Sanji is almost certainly still significantly stronger than Koby.
2) Black Maria and her subordinates are almost certainly far weaker than Shiryu.
Sanji has an almost comical weakness to girls. Coby doesn't have that to innocent. Like, Sanji is literally horny for girls. Coby ain't horny for innocents.
And again, Grus, someone who wasn't hyped in coo or any haki at all, knew it was a trap. Coby didn't. And it wasn't shiryu that tricked him. It was random fodder. Shiryu was just the finisher for Garp