Sanji vs King's set up is more than their clash. It's the fucking plotline they're both involved in.
Oda used various arcs to develop a relationship between Sanji and Kinemon. With Sanji's only interest in Onigashma being Kinemon's and Momo's safety. And King's only interest being Kinemon's and Momo's demise. This is what is called proper set-up. Sanji countlessly fighting the hoardes to get to the scarbbards and protect them, whilst King constantly telling the F6 to finish the Samurai and them constantly failing. Leading to King finally deciding to get it done himself with Sanji finally being able to reach them. And them having their penultimate match.
Oh? But King is not going after any of these people right? It’s Sasaki who went after Momo and Black Maria is going after the scabbards. Is Sanji going to do anything about Black Maria or Sasaki? No.
In fact isn’t this the same argument around Sanji going to the roof? It’s Kaido who was beating the shit out of the scabbards. Sanji has a deep connection to the Kin’emon supposedly. So Sanji will go to the roof to fight Kaido. Kaido is also the one who is after Robin and also the one who was gonna kill Momo. Those are three things Sanji supposedly cares about. All three things in danger coming directly from Kaido. But Sanji won’t do shit to Kaido because that’s not his actual plot. He cares about Robin but he won’t do shit to Black Maria because that’s not his story. Robin will probably handle Black Maria herself. He saved Momo so he cares about Momo but he isn’t the one protecting Momo because that’s not his story. He cares about Kin’emon and company but obviously he’s not the one going to save them since he can’t beat Black Maria.
I can even go back to Sanji cares about Nami and yet he’s not the one who protected her from either Big mom herself or Ulti.
It seems time and again, “Sanji cares about X” has nothing to do with whether his story will lead to that specific outcome.
Now what’s interesting AND RARE is when someone else cares about Sanji. If for example Big mom on the roof said “Keep Robin alive and that cook who made that cake” even I would fold. That would be the moment even I would believe Sanji would go to the roof even though I know Sanji can’t harm anyone there.
See Black Maria has an interest in Sanji and that’s why the story actually put them together. Black Maria is exploiting a weakness of Sanji. They are connected via actual character and mutual interest in one another. And that’s why the story has put them together.
king has no interest in Sanji at least compared to Queen. And once again, these two are connected via actual character. And you better believe that Queen going on about “Judge’s son” and whatever his thing with Judge is will create a very specific interest from Sanji.
You know what, it’s easy. Let them meet. You at least agree that Queen will have to meet Sanji right? Well let’s wait and see what happens. Because what I know is that if they meet, there is no way this doesn’t escalate. As far as I can tell, the only way Sanji and Queen don’t fight is if they never meet.