"Shoulder to shoulder with Roger-Rayleigh" = They're dead equals in powerscaling
"Equal of even the Pirate King" = They're dead equals in powerscaling
"Fought for 10 days as equals, but lost" = They're still equals, even if one got crippled
Yea alright buddy.
Lodestar as well, since theoretically its just following log pose from island to island, which should be easy for any top tier. Yet only the crew with 3 solidified top tiers went to it in 800 years. Hmmm...