His feats and portrayal are top notch
For fucks sake, he fought who's who, and while it wasn't an extreme battle, it was still hard for him. If oda respected him so much, he would have just given him a better stronger matchup than the plot device for exposition dumping that was who's who.
He also got stalemated by Ace too. A rookie ace who wasn't even a commander.
If you want to rile up sanjo fans, there are other, better ways than wanking the double dicked fat shark.