I didnt get that feeling in pre TS tbh, the strength of giants was either hidden or not properly portrayed, I mean Croc seemed broken at that point.
It was obvious that they were way stronger than Crocodile, and for a long time stronger than anything that we have seen. And even till now the strongest ever.
What we knew about Crocodile until the end of Little Garden, was that he was a Shichibukai and that he previously had a 80 Million bounty.
Dorry and Broggy, where the fear of the Sea. This said by the Narrator. They each had a bounty of 100 Million. More than Crocodile each, and more 20 Million than him, that is an Arlong! (P.S: Also it was also mentioned that it was not accurate value because it was such old bounties)
They killed each, again, Sea Kings the size of Islands, and in the end of the arc together they killed the Island Eater, the Goldfish that created the Nanimo island. Using the biggest attack seen in the Series until this point, Hakoku Sovereignty, and only surpassed later by devil fruit powers (Aokiji and Whitebeard) and "equaled" by attacks imitating it, Big Mom and Kaido(And the reason when they did such attacks was such hype).
They fought for 100 years. And Dorry after receiving an explosion inside his stomach, defeated Luffy. When Luffy attacked in his weak spot, the stomach, and didn't show, until the last moment that he had a devil fruit.
See, Crocodile was searching for Pluton, because it could destroy an Island with one Shot. Well, Each of this Giants can do just that or similar.
About Mr. 3. Not only Broggy(And Dorry to lose) was tripped while unprepared and tired, and put in a lock position, where he wouldn't be able to apply correctly his strength. But he was able to free himself from that situation. Showing again his absurd strength(this is explicitly pointed out by Mr. 3)
Mr. 3 seeing this, reenforced the lock and impaled Broggy hands and feets, but still he had strength to break free from that and destroy his hands and feet in the process.
And this while being Tired of fighting 2 consecutive fights against Dorry.
Remember, Broggy, with Zoro, just didn't get themselves free, because Luffy, Ussop and Carue arrived and they trusted them to handle the situation.
The only thing Crocodile had at the time over them, was his intangibility and his cunning for creating Baroque Works organization and making the Operation Utopia.
It was protrayed overwelmingly as Dorry and Broggy, being way, but way stronger than Crocodile.
