Idk if someone already posted but
But he just used Gear 5 and is currently recovering from it, right? I assume the side effect was due to the giant transformation he did during his fight with Lucci.
Oda’s formula is that if a character doesn’t get defeated the first time, they’ll get used to move the story along and then get finished off some point later on, whether it’s temporarily or once and for all like Kaido supposedly.
Although, if Kaido
were still alive then the ZKK theory could live on