Shanks have connections with Roger, and by what the story is showing with his age and the line about babys that Roger and Ray say in Oden FB, with the ones who where in God Valley, be the Celestials or Rocks, but u think the one that get him to know about the WG was Mihawk????
More important than the powerscale is the plot, if u pay more attention to that u would realize that Mihawk only plot connection with antoher character in the story is with Shanks, and now that the Warlords have ended he will go hang out with Shanks crew to avoid the WG annoying him. And that make for the perfect setting for Luffy, Ussop and Zoro have theirs meetings with theirs ideal figures. This idea that Zoro will fight Shanks make no sense storywise, u think what? the SH meet the RHP and Zoro go fight Shanks while Luffy, who is stronger and is the protagonist, fight Ben Beckman? take easy on the headcanon man hahaha
Mihawk is strong but he was unable to cut Jozu and he clearly states that WB was far above him, of course there are stronger characters them him the in Manga.
About Shiryu, If Zoro dont fight him, the second stronger, who he gonna fight in the battle against the BBP? He was said to be on the same lvl of Magellan pre ts, now he is stronger because of the TS powerups and have a DF, and we know that the BBP dont fight clean.
Roger was not friendly with the WG, so its imposible for Shanks's connection to the WG to come from Roger or Rocks, maybe he was a celestial like you said, im also just coming up with plosable theories not stating accurate facts here.
So you think Mihawk will hang out with Shanks for what reason?
Mihawk has already stated he is looking forward to fighting the marines again so why would you think he will find it annoying and also why would Mihawk ask Shanks who is inferiors to him for protection?
Mihawk has already stated he wont find Zoro again until he surpasses his old rival Shanks, this is what we have been told is not something the community just came up with out of the blue. Storywise so far only Zoro out of Luffy's crew brothers (Zoro, Sanji and Usopp) only Zoro out of them has not yet had a dissagrement with Luffy, so storywise it would make far more sense as a payoff of what Zoro and Luffy agreed to the he would never get in the way of Zoro's dream, Luffy having to deal with the fact that he would have to stop or watch Zoro fight Shanks would be a great plot point.
Shanks is strong but he was unable to beat an 8mil mountain bandit fodder and lost an arm to some weak monster Luffy was able to one shot after turning 17, also Mihawk never stated WB was far above him please dont lie and again Oda has specifically stated Mihawk, Whitebeard and Shanks are legends among men in SBS73 implying that those 3 are the strongest in the verse.
Ofcause Mihawk is not the strongest character, King Imm is probably the strongest character if not then its Kaido followed close behind by Akainu, Mihawk is not even top 3 in the verse and he is stronger than Shanks fyi.
No one is saying Zoro wont fight Shiryu, but obviously that fight will happen before Zoro meets Mihawk, and its not even guaranteed that Zoro will fight Shiryu since Kuzan is the 2nd strongest in the BBP so its more likely that Zoro will fight him.
