Would be a hilarious excuse to give other characters screen time to finally grow or show what they learned in the timeskip.
Broo for example.
It is actually something he does:
- Luffy losing 3 times to Crocodile to postpone their conclusion until other things finished
- Luffy falling off the ship in Skypiea and needing 20 chapters to defeat Enel
- Luffy losing Moria because he ran away. This lead to the Oars stuff.
- Doflamingo sending Luffy down with Bellamy to distract him to push along every other fight with his executives while it happened.
- Luffy running from Katakuri then reoplving to continue fighting. It gave us a few chapters of breathing room to get other things done
- Luffy losing to Kaido and was gone for 10+ chapters. This resolved F6 fights, got Zoro/Sanji to King/Queen and lead to Jack/Peros losing.
Now here. It tracts, but Oda cant have Luffy, someone who defeated Kaido, just "lose" to Kizaru. So knocking him out while he loses G5 tracks with past arcs. But maybe thats cope idk lol