Asking Sanji to beat him alone is a ZKK level theory so i would say Sanji will look good and will be acknowledged, since he is the Warrior of Science for a reason and we are in the so called land of science. His relation with Bonney seems to be something special given how Oda is placing them together and throwing some interesting sentences and dialogues.
Although it's inevitable that whoever fights an enemy you can't beat means you're gonna end up hyping that said enemy somehow, to a certain point.
So far Sanji has been highlighted alone, and we even have Oda in the SBS backing him up and hinting stuff to the future. So i expect something, and it doesn't need to be all about fighting tbh, and lets not forget Kuma might still play an important role.