Even though I believe Lafitte to be Sanjis opponent, I don't agree with the idea that Avalo looked bad. Shiryu landed a decent sneak attack on Garp and Avalo withstood named attacks from Koby and Garp, all in all the performance of the BBPs in Hachinosu leaves a lot to be desired, but we know Oda won't show us their full capabilities until the matchups. But every move Lafitte has made from the shadows is similar to not only Sanji but also Bentham, who I believe to be the new world "parallel" to Laffitte. Being tasked with the most important missions, he infiltrated the Albuarna royal court where he disguised himself as King Cobra to execute Crocodiles "operation Utopia", this is very similar to what Lafitte has been doing since the pre time skip, working from the shadows to execute his captains grand plans.