The truth is, I expected more from Dragon — he was disappointing in this chapter. He’s 17 and Kaido is 21, so he’s 4 years younger than Kaido, but we saw that Kaido at 17 could tear an island to pieces while fighting Xebec, was strong enough that Xebec couldn’t beat him with a single shot, and even took an ACOA attack from Xebec without any problem.
Dragon got pierced by a laser and that’s it — he was shocked the whole time. Of course, unlike Kaido, who grew up on battlefields and became the ultimate soldier of a nation that relied on war to survive, someone familiar with death and blood, Dragon wasn’t that guy at this age. He was nervous and shocked the entire time, but clearly there’s no comparison between 17-year-old Kaido and 17-year-old Dragon.