It would be dumb supposing Oda spent an entire unnecessary chapter/cliffhanger on some completely useless plan when he could have had Zoro simply attacking from the front, yes.
No?
There was no cliffhanger or plan, simply Zoro saying "attack when the flame is off". Solved in one scene and more so giving us the actual true answer, which applied in this case would be taking for true what Zoro told us: don't go between them or you get DRed.