I’ve seen a lot of talk about how Luffy is close to if not already at Admiral level of power. I’m going to state my thoughts, provide evidence, and also refute common counterarguments I see many people say.
In my opinion, the Admirals are the most powerful people in the One Piece World behind the Yonko. I don’t think anyone could defeat an Admiral besides a Yonko (and probably Monkey D. Dragon). That makes 5 people in the OP World that are stronger than an Admiral. Yonko Commanders, in my opinion, are not Admiral level, rather there is still a significant gap between the two. I say this because I believe the Admirals are very close to the Yonko in power, and everyone agrees there is a large gap between the Yonko and their Commanders. I’ll give my reasoning for this, and hopefully convince you as well.
I think the biggest reason people disregard the Admirals and don’t see how strong they really are is because Whitebeard defeated Akainu in a pretty epic fashion at Marineford. I love that fight, and while Whitebeard did beat Akainu in the end, people seem to forget that Whitebeard suffered HEAVY damage before finishing the fight. By heavy damage, I mean having a gigantic hole in your chest with magma burning your internal organs (Ace took the same damage and look what happened to him), and having half your face burned off (in the anime it was censored to be just his mustache.)
Akainu literally made Whitebeard, still regarded in his old age as the “Strongest Man in the World”, fall to his knees. Who else do you know that can do that? Can Marco, Jozu, Katakuri or Jack do that? Only another Yonko would have a feasible chance of accomplishing such a feat. Moreover, a few minutes after being defeated, Akainu got up and chased after Luffy and Jinbe to stop them from escaping. That literal island shattering punch from Whitebeard only made Akainu go down for a couple minutes. Akainu, after taking all that damage from WB, was attacked by Marco and Vista at the same time, and they were not able to even damage him. He remarked that they were irritating to him.
Marco is the first mate of Whitebeard, and is at least equal to, if not stronger than Katakuri. If he couldn’t damage Akainu WITH Vista’s help, then even if Luffy beats Katakuri, he most likely wouldn’t be able to touch Akainu.
After seeing this, I really don’t see how anyone can make an argument for Yonko commanders to be as strong as an Admiral. If Luffy is struggling heavily against Katakuri, there’s simply no way that he can match up to someone like Akainu at this point. We can also see from this fight that Admirals are very close to Yonko in power. Akainu and Whitebeard traded heavy blows, and even though Whitebeard came out on top (he is a Yonko after all), Akainu was back up a few minutes later and still posed a massive threat to everyone there, even taking on the entire Whitebeard pirate crew, commanders included.
