Spoilers made it out like Kaidou was a complete fraud and he was cowardly and underhanded.
Turns out, he was basically acting like the WG back at Marineford when they turned the island into an ambush death-trap vs the WB pirates using strategy and tactics.
Trick Oden into a pledge of peace for 5 years making him into a fool...lel hey Akainu went and got Squardo turn on WB
during the heat of battle
Use a split-second distraction to land a decisive blow? Kizaru and Aokiji say "Hi y'all" since that's how they got the better of Marco and Jozu respectively. This also leads to the implication that Kaidou and Oden were very close in power, so close that exactly a split-second was all it needed to decide the outcome either way.
Before people jump down my throat, no this isn't a criticism of the Marines or the Admirals. War is war. Just pointing out that what Kaidou did, was not necessarily the scummiest thing ever in this manga.
As for the actual confrontation. I was slightly disappointed. As I was by the last chapter. It's obvious that Oda has in his mind a series of vignettes of powerful evocative imagery that he's been dying to put into his story. The 'dancing foolish warrior' based on the leader of the 49 Ronin who at one point does something similar to make the enemy think he's harmless for about a year or so - chapter 969.
Here the snapshot that matters is that of a warrior beheading or in this case slicing open a giant dragon ( call-back to Ryuma and Zoro at PH). The problem is, in order to reach this point Oda sometimes uses the road less-travelled. This fight feels disjointed, even more so because Oda is intent on hiding as much as he can the abilities of the Beast Pirates. Why for example have King and Queen in silhouette? just seems silly. Never mind them, we don't even get to see the Scabbards fight properly. Kin cuts fire? yeah let's not show that. Raizou using ninja arts? yeah lets not show that. Just personal gripes.
Still, this Kaidou is not the same as the one in chapter 795. Either Oda is retconning him into something else, or Kaidou twenty years ago wasn't as suicidal as he is depicted in current times. We even get a mini flashback from Hawkins on that infamous leap of death - turns out Kaidou and Apoo planned it all out. So? has Oda retconned Kaidou's suicidal tendencies (perhaps editorial nudged him since the topic is pretty sensitive in Japan). It would be hard to justify Luffy or the story killing off a suicidal man - that would be a reward, not punishment and paint his depression and suicide as a
good thing lol.
What is Oda doing? Why is he showing us Kaido jobbing right before Onigashima when he's supposed to be building hype?
I can think of 2 reasons:
1- Oda wants to end Wano reasonably early. Perhaps by chapter 1000. Shwoing all the power-ups Luffy, Zoro and the others got and now giving us Kaidou being vulnerable and nowhere near his previous hype is to prepare readers for his relatively swift defeat in the next 30+ chapters
2- It's all a bluff. All the above plus showing Kaidou as vulnerable is to trick readers into thinking Luffy and co. got this in the bag and will coast to a relatively 'easy' victory. Especially since they are carrying the will of righteous vengeance to right the injustice done to Oden and Wano at large. Paralleling the whole march to Onigashima in the present with their tragic march in the past. But this time, the march will end with a different outcome.
But, what if this is exactly what Oda wants everyone to think before he pulls the rug out from under everyone?