I expected Kaido to be more injured before Luffy started 1v1'ing him (he is of course but I expected it to be a bit more severe). Actually, I thought we'd see Law assisting him since Zoro left it to him but nah, Luffy's handling things. Maybe Luffy will get some help in the form of Zoro later on but if he does it alone, it's expected at this point.
Luffy relying less on his gears is understandable given their drawbacks (Rayleigh even told him to eventually come up with something else due to how serious those were) but him straight-up going toe to toe with Kaido without them is a bit surprising even if he's found a new application of his haki.
Luffy's really strong now and he even declared he'll beat Kaido himself. I'm not really mad but yeah, it's extreme. I don't have much issue with Luffy getting even stronger after realising that he can apply his Conqueror's to his attacks since he specializes in that type of haki but it giving him this big a boost is a tad shocking. If Kaido busts out awakening before Luffy busts out Gears then it'll be even more crazy.
Kaido still faced 13 other opponents before Luffy and him started fighting 1v1 so unless Luffy dominates him with a Gear 5 or new Gear 4, Kaido's definitely stronger but yeah, Luffy being this strong right now was unexpected for me. I'm still cool with it and I'm actually pretty excited for the rest of the fight (though I'd prefer seeing all the below-the-roof fights finish before that). So long as the only real opponents Luffy has from here on out are Yonko, Admirals and individuals as strong as them, it's ok going forward, I guess.