
Off the bat yes luffy and zoro are stronger than kizaru and lucci. That being said they still might’ve won their fights but neither really defeated their opponent. Which is honestly fine because this arc was never about full on fights at any point. They were mainly there to keep them busy and be cool

The main goal in the fights has from the jump been ending them as soon as possible so they can escape. With Luffy also having the extra goal of trying to protect vegapunk from him
While yes technically zoro fighting Lucci protects him from attacking others Lucci wasn’t trying to run from the fight and was focused on zoro
Kizaru did everything he could to keep luffy away from him so he could focus on killing vrgapunk. Which honestly ended up working out for him with the surprise arrival of Saturn
It being an escape arc on a time crunch also explains why Luffy and zoro jumped into staining forms like overflowing and g4/5 off the bat. Because again they were just trying to get it over with as soon as possible so they can all escape. And props to Lucci and kizaru for not letting them

Both of them outlasted those forms and were able to keep on fighting after. Even now after everything they both still refuse to lose consciousness. Both potentially still able to fight if they really wanted with kizaru having an extra excuse of being mentally nerfed due to his feelings of the situation

To an extent it’s kinda the same with sanji vs kaku but with Sanji beating him before it even escalated into a fight. Sanji not really needing to get as many fights as Luffy or Zoro
Again tho all that being said
Kaido > kizaru, king > Lucci, and queen > kaku
Same with
Luffy > kizaru, zoro > Lucci, and sanji > kaku
Kizaru and Lucci have still been impressive this arc and while losing they never got straight up defeated