Y'all got chill with these kinda clashes.
In that same arc, the very same Croc who you're gassing up was threatened enough by pre-ts Luffy to stop attacking WB. This was his level and even on MF when his strength was quote and quote "retconned" his weakness were pretty glaring. This is the man that people are saying is going to high diff peak high tiers

It's not hard to look menacing with a powerful Logia like his. Hell even Smoker who has a weaker DF was flexing on MF.
I'm not saying Croc is not going to be upscaled in some way. It is feasible but y'all have to come with much better arguments than "he's a shichibukai" or "he blocked mihawk". Fcking Vista was able to fight Mihawk to a bloody draw on MF and the man is fodder to top tiers.
Also I'm not the biggest Lucci fan but calling Lucci a random Cp9 agent is very disingenuous and even the whole warlord argument you're using goes to shit simply by looking at the SHs PL rankings.
The reality is that I could make a very strong argument for Jinbe beating Croc but that very same Jinbe would get washed by any peak high tier.
Croc has a powerful Devil Fruit but that is it but at the top level when put against powerful haki users, he's incredibly limited.