or maybe Lucci was never that strong?
It's quite ridiculous to think that mere CP0 bumasses could be that strong. Imagine CP0 having someone as strong as Marco. That sound ridiculous.
-2 CP0 lost vs injured Izo
-Stussy went down from 1 shigan
-Kaku jobbed hard offscreen
Why should Lucci be any different? Also, Oda writing previous arc that Who's Who was as strong as Lucci could lead to believe that Lucci is just a bit stronger than WW.
And before you bring up, Gear 5 nonsense. Obviously Oda just used Lucci in order to make Vegapunk talk about Nika and then the whole fight was a reference to their previous fight.
We've seen much stronger characters job to much weaker characters.
Let's not start downplaying Lucci now that he got bodied lmao. Lucci easily busted straight through Sentomaru's barrier, the same Sentomaru who successfully blocked Kizaru's attack. Sentomaru uses ACoA, the same technique Udon Luffy was dying to learn and Lucci blew through it like it was nothing.
Callback or not, Oda did not need to have Luffy match Lucci in G5. He could've done the callback in their base forms (which is what they originally occurred in back on EL) and then powered them up, but he didn't. So your answer to simply disregard the entire occurrence is a cop-out - feat-wise, Lucci was able to match G5 Luffy in a head-on clash of CoA. You can even see Luffy smiling as he feels the force of Lucci's punch before he gets sent flying.
Furthermore, Lucci received hype from Vegapunk for "astonishing speed" and later hype from Sentomaru, another high-tier who was straight up fodderised.
Which YC2 is shitstomping another high-tier in the same way Lucci bodied Sentomaru? Which YC2 or below is matching a powered up Yonko in a clash of CoA? It took Marco
and Vista to stop Akainu alone - Lucci showed very good physical strength. Mihawk was babying Vista, incomparable to Luffy vs Lucci. Queen is the strongest YC2 villain and he could
never replicate Lucci's feats lol.
Vs the seraphim, Lucci's non-awakened Shigan was paralleled with a CoC-less Kong Organ. His Rokougan was paralleled with a Kong Gun. That's a ridiculous feat because G4 is most definitely at least YC1 without ACoC, and Lucci wasn't even in his strongest form. He took a barrage of G5 attacks and looked totally fresh 2 minutes later. All the hype that Lucci received prior to this point indicates that he was a YC1 level opponent because anyone lower simply doesn't receive that kinda hype.
Zoro's just built different. He's a top-tier through and through.