Yes, Sanji is close to Zoro.
If he had Luffy in his team, they would be close to strong enough to beat Zoro.
But Zoro still edges them out as he has the power of 3.
If Shusui is 2nd grade for portrayal reasons, Shanks sword is not stronger than Ryuma's.
It seems there is too much cope in your arguments, whether to help Shanks or Sanji.
Either way, they are 2nd and 3rd grade fighters compared to Mihawk and Zoro.
The peak of Power of One Piece world belongs to Zoro vs Mihawk.
no it doesnt this is just cope to try and overhype zoro and mihawk
to act like zoro is the strongest with some weird logic like that one guy I met who tried to claim that becuase zoro didnt get a tough fight till wano zoro didnt get stronger between fmi and wano or that because luffy did get tough fights that somehow makes him weaker then zoro which is ridiculous luffy getting tough fight and zoro didnt just means oda chose not to create an opponent for zoro.
in dressrosa zoro would have gotten stomped by doffy
sanji is and always has been close in strength to zoro no amount of but hype tool but zoro got a mid difff fight while sanji got stomped cope will change that fact
saturn eye's him and injured him and then proceeded to use his paralysis technique to stop him ( same thing would happen to zoro oda just avoids that to allow zoro to keep his promise.
fact is you would need to outright ignore narrative and portrayal to claim zoro was ever stronger then luffy or that sanji and zoro arent close in strength /rivals
its like claiming queen is stronger then king or that shanks is stronger then mihawk or that rayleigh was stronger then whitebeard
but zoro never gets used as a hypetool post timeskip doesnt change that fact
luffy will always be above zoro egghead island luffy stomps egghead island zoro at eos zoro will be yonko level
notice rooftop pre adv coc was able to knock kaido down and get his praise from kaido who compared him to shanks etc while rooftop zoro didnt get anything like that basically even at the start of the rooftop luffy was leages above zoro who wasnt able to cause serious damage
it took him awakening adv coc in order to get that ( praise by giving kaido a tiny scar ( he was using adv coc and he wasnt nerfed in any way damage has never been shown to nerf ap in onepiece it has only shown to effect durability )
zoro vs sanji in a 1 vs 1 fight is an extreme diff fight for zoro accept that if anything its your post that reads like cope with the attempts to pretend zoro is yonko level just because he fought against lucci
because you want to make zoro the strongest of the crew because you cant accept that a guy with a stoic badass demeanor is weaker then a guy who is goofy ( thats how one piece is ) and that his rival can be used for the worf effect and look bad ( to b