[Discussion] At what difficulty can Roger defeat an admiral?

[Praydara]

I'm saying it'll be boring if the strongest was as far ahead of everyone else. No threat, no drama, no character development. Just boring.

Just saying, this is a good point. One Piece has never been all about someone being absurdly stronger than everyone else - even Whitebeard, who was considered the strongest man around for good reason, wasn't monstrously above the higher tier characters. It would be boring if the Pirate King were that ridiculously powerful.

 

[24 12 11 to troll]

This is exactly why I(and others) stop replying to you after some time. We lose interest. In the thread from 2 months ago, you said I didn't have a cohesive understanding of my own points which is essentially no different than saying I don't know what I'm talking about or don't fully understand my own words.

When someone gives a counter arguments, they expect a good counter arguments in return. Not the same answer again and again and again with insults tossed in for good measure. A lot of the replies you give hardly correlate to the things the guy you are replying to said. You completely missed their point. Like in this topic, me, Riker Slade and F U JI T O R A O lost interest in this topic because you and others kept giving the same answers, missing our points, saying things that had nothing to do with what we've said and of course, the mountain of unnecessary insults which greatly lowers our ability to take you seriously.

He's definitely REKT x3 now

 

[ssjelf]

The very worst part is that they keep on trying to counter my point that Pirate King isn't something you can accomplish completely by yourself by bringing up Luffy's innate charisma that allows him to make allies. Lemme restate that again: Their counterargument for Luffy needing allies to become Pirate King is that Luffy has the ability to naturally make allies.

They might as well be going ¨Aaron is such a nice a guy, people like him, so they helped him build that house, so Aaron obviously built the house by himself.¨

Not only that, but it fails on another level as well. I'm saying Pirate King isn't based on your individual strength alone. It's not something you can gain just by having tremendous ability or skill. Their counterargument is charisma, something that isn't an ability or skill, as Mihawk made clear, which goes along with what I was saying: Pirate King is about more than just being powerful; it's not a rank of power.

Obviously becoming Pirate King is gonna be much harder than becoming the World's Strongest Swordsman. Of all the pirates in the world, there are gonna be more pirates who want to be Pirate King than those who want to be World's Strongest Swordsman because only a fraction of pirates are swordsmen, and then a part of them will actually be swordsmen who want have that aim and drive. Compare the amount of people who want to be Pirate King to the number of people who have claimed to want to become WSS. Not to mention the World Government is actively trying to prevent a Pirate King from happening again, so you have their forces on your ass, but they don't care about someone becoming a new WSS.

There's also the fact that becoming WSS has a simple task: Becoming stronger and stronger until you can beat Mihawk. Becoming Pirate King is a bit more complicated, since you have to find One Piece, something that know one has a clue of the appearance of nor definite knowledge of its location. The closest they have to knowing where it is is their guessing Raftel, and even Raftel's location itself they have to guess about.

Shanks is a swordsman, Mihawk is the world's strongest swordsman, the math is pretty simple. The WG have the Shichibukai because the Yonko have allies. They don't have seven Shichibukai and three Admirals to combat four individual Yonko, they have them and their Marine forces to combat the four Yonko and their allies, which number into the thousands. With just five Shichibukai and the Admirals at Marineford, the Yonko Whitebeard's side got a crushing defeat, only one of the Marines' major players suffered close to severe injuries and that was Akainu, and even those didn't stop him from taking on the strongest members of the Yonko's crew after the Yonko died.

Im not here to argue shanks v mihawk, but that logic only furthers my point. WSS at yonkou level puts PK a ways above yonkou according to mihawk.

I'm saying it'll be boring if the strongest was as far ahead of everyone else. No threat, no drama, no character development. Just boring.

He's definitely in the Manga you moron...

You have a point. But if he has no challenge to further overcome he will plateau as he has already achieved his goal

It is implausible, unless Luffy develops some kind of NaruSasu relationship with Kidd there's nothing to push anyone to such ridiculous levels of strength. There's a limit to your Haki, it gets capped... otherwise the oldest characters would be thousands of times stronger than they are, and age wouldn't force your strength into decline.

You've completely ignored the fact Luffy is pretty much a mirror image of Roger if he were to shave. They're parallels. Luffy vs an Admiral is a likely fight though, and we'll probably see more than one like that

Roger is not in the manga in any active way nor has he had any onscreen fights. He is not the main character. The story is not about his journey. The point is that roger pwning some noobs matters not to the excitement of the story. if you didnt realize what I meant im not the moron here.

The admirals arent the peak of strength imo. They are 1 tier below roger, garp, WB, shiki, and likely sengoku. At this point akainu might fall into this category. there are also potential wildcards as well. By the end of this, you keep mentioning "the point of the admirals in this story" and I feel like you misinterpret their role. The admirals are not end game enemies although they will be involved. The last two enemies luffy will fight are most likely akainu (FA) or BB (yonkou) neither are admirals and i imagine that akainu has gotten a significant buff since the time skip because promotions in shonen relate to power usually. See smoker for example. There are a few fighters to push luffy beyond that level.

Are we talking about roger during his rise to PK? Luffy is similar to roger but he wont be at rogers level as soon as he gets one piece. He still has the final war to fight which may occur right before or after he claims one piece. There is also smoker who has been portrayed to be luffys main "rival". Although luffy has surpassed him for now, there is still the chance that they will push each others limits after the manga ends similar to garp and roger. garp was at a higher level than admirals btw so I imagine luffy will have some enemy beyond them as well even if it isnt smoker. Just because he is beyond the admirals does not make the manga boring, there are fighters beyond the admirals. Garp was, roger, WB, current akainu, sengoku at some point, and probably kong. Also BB by the end of this will be above admirals too because he is like the main villain now, it would be boring if Luffy fought a main villain who was only at admiral level right? He needs a villain that cant be defeated by anyone but him. My logic here is that because there is only one main villain he should be above the 3 admirals just due to numbers, its a shonen manga so it to me it would cheapen it if there were 3 others equally powerful to the main villain as well as a handful beyond.

Just saying, this is a good point. One Piece has never been all about someone being absurdly stronger than everyone else - even Whitebeard, who was considered the strongest man around for good reason, wasn't monstrously above the higher tier characters. It would be boring if the Pirate King were that ridiculously powerful.

How is a high diff fight boring? BTW admirals aren't at the level of young garp so they arent highest tier. One tier down is where they fit. To me an extreme diff fight is like luffy v lucci and the highest possible diff is like akainu v aokiji. I think it would cheapen the story to have the PK only win by the skin of his teeth to an admiral when there are clearly fighters beyond even them.

 

[Punk Hazard]

Im not here to argue shanks v mihawk, but that logic only furthers my point. WSS at yonkou level puts PK a ways above yonkou according to mihawk.

Roger is not in the manga in any active way nor has he had any onscreen fights. He is not the main character. The story is not about his journey. The point is that roger pwning some noobs matters not to the excitement of the story. if you didnt realize what I meant im not the moron here.

The admirals arent the peak of strength imo. They are 1 tier below roger, garp, WB, shiki, and likely sengoku. At this point akainu might fall into this category. there are also potential wildcards as well. By the end of this, you keep mentioning "the point of the admirals in this story" and I feel like you misinterpret their role. The admirals are not end game enemies although they will be involved. The last two enemies luffy will fight are most likely akainu (FA) or BB (yonkou) neither are admirals and i imagine that akainu has gotten a significant buff since the time skip because promotions in shonen relate to power usually. See smoker for example. There are a few fighters to push luffy beyond that level.

Are we talking about roger during his rise to PK? Luffy is similar to roger but he wont be at rogers level as soon as he gets one piece. He still has the final war to fight which may occur right before or after he claims one piece. There is also smoker who has been portrayed to be luffys main "rival". Although luffy has surpassed him for now, there is still the chance that they will push each others limits after the manga ends similar to garp and roger. garp was at a higher level than admirals btw so I imagine luffy will have some enemy beyond them as well even if it isnt smoker. Just because he is beyond the admirals does not make the manga boring, there are fighters beyond the admirals. Garp was, roger, WB, current akainu, sengoku at some point, and probably kong. Also BB by the end of this will be above admirals too because he is like the main villain now, it would be boring if Luffy fought a main villain who was only at admiral level right? He needs a villain that cant be defeated by anyone but him. My logic here is that because there is only one main villain he should be above the 3 admirals just due to numbers, its a shonen manga so it to me it would cheapen it if there were 3 others equally powerful to the main villain as well as a handful beyond.



How is a high diff fight boring? BTW admirals aren't at the level of young garp so they arent highest tier. One tier down is where they fit. To me an extreme diff fight is like luffy v lucci and the highest possible diff is like akainu v aokiji. I think it would cheapen the story to have the PK only win by the skin of his teeth to an admiral when there are clearly fighters beyond even them.

No it doesn't. Becoming Pirate King isn't harder than becoming WSS because a Pirate King is stronger than a WSS. Becoming Pirate King is harder because WSS is straightforward: Become strong enough to beat Mihawk. Becoming Pirate King means finding One Piece, the thing that know one knows the appearance of, the location of, the size of, the thing that the world didn't even know for sure was real until two years ago. This, along with the Marines actively going against you, and especially going against you if you wanna be Pirate King, but not giving a shit about a new WSS.

 

[ssjelf]

No it doesn't. Becoming Pirate King isn't harder than becoming WSS because a Pirate King is stronger than a WSS. Becoming Pirate King is harder because WSS is straightforward: Become strong enough to beat Mihawk. Becoming Pirate King means finding One Piece, the thing that know one knows the appearance of, the location of, the size of, the thing that the world didn't even know for sure was real until two years ago. This, along with the Marines actively going against you, and especially going against you if you wanna be Pirate King, but not giving a shit about a new WSS.

Its hardly as simple as finding it like you said. you have marines against you and all the yonkou. in order to explore freely for it you need to be able to best these powers who are actively working to get it for themselves and to keep others from getting it. in other words, it is inevitable that you will run into and have to fight these powers. if you aren't strong enough you lose. Do you really think luffy will become PK without being stronger than the yonkou. You have to be top dog. Not only that but you have to be strong enough to survive the final war we know is coming, you can be sure the strongest will fight the strongest, and the winner claims One piece. If it happens after OP is claimed then all the strongest will fight that person to claim it. To be PK you gotta be the strongest of in all the seas or you aren't gonna find it let alone keep it. See croc who wanted to be PK and got rekt.

BTW you only keep furthering my point lol. The one to be PK has a tougher road because he has to beat more people like the marines. Im not sure what you are saying here. Of course finding it will be a challenge, but if there was no competition it would be found relatively quickly. It was even said in an SBS that akainu was so strong that if he was the main character he would find One Piece in under a year. That directly implies that strength is the bigger issue than location.

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Again directly implied that the strongest man is closest to one piece.

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Those two images are all thats needed to prove our point. WB is the only one to fight on par with Roger. Roger=Prime WB>Old WB. Garp was the only one to corner him. No mention of an admiral. If an admiral can't corner him, it isnt an extreme diff fight.

 

[Punk Hazard]

Its hardly as simple as finding it like you said. you have marines against you and all the yonkou. in order to explore freely for it you need to be able to best these powers who are actively working to get it for themselves and to keep others from getting it. in other words, it is inevitable that you will run into and have to fight these powers. if you aren't strong enough you lose. Do you really think luffy will become PK without being stronger than the yonkou. You have to be top dog. Not only that but you have to be strong enough to survive the final war we know is coming, you can be sure the strongest will fight the strongest, and the winner claims One piece. If it happens after OP is claimed then all the strongest will fight that person to claim it. To be PK you gotta be the strongest of in all the seas or you aren't gonna find it let alone keep it. See croc who wanted to be PK and got rekt.

Yeah, I do think Luffy can become Pirate King without being stronger than every Yonko. Luffy can become Pirate King if he has extreme diff fights with the Yonko like he did Rob Lucci. Not only would that make for a hella more entertaining story, it'd make more sense, seeing as Roger and Whitebeard, Pirate King and Yonko, extreme diffed each other, then Roger extreme diffed Garp, who is Admiral level.

Bruh you just admitted to finding One Piece being more complicated than even I was giving it credit for. Stop shooting yourself in the foot just to miss me.

 

[Tomato God]

I should have brought popcorn

 

[ssjelf]

Yeah, I do think Luffy can become Pirate King without being stronger than every Yonko. Luffy can become Pirate King if he has extreme diff fights with the Yonko like he did Rob Lucci. Not only would that make for a hella more entertaining story, it'd make more sense, seeing as Roger and Whitebeard, Pirate King and Yonko, extreme diffed each other, then Roger extreme diffed Garp, who is Admiral level.

Bruh you just admitted to finding One Piece being more complicated than even I was giving it credit for. Stop shooting yourself in the foot just to miss me.

I added more btw. But i fail to see how making the One piece more unattainable makes the PK weaker, rather it makes him stronger. Seems like Mihawks words just get more ture every post you make. The thing about shonen manga is that once the main character extreme diffs an opponent, he gets stronger.

Garp>admirals tho.

 

[Punk Hazard]

I added more btw. But i fail to see how making the One piece more unattainable makes the PK weaker, rather it makes him stronger. Seems like Mihawks words just get more ture every post you make. The thing about shonen manga is that once the main character extreme diffs an opponent, he gets stronger.

Garp>admirals tho.

Its hardly as simple as finding it like you said. you have marines against you and all the yonkou. in order to explore freely for it you need to be able to best these powers who are actively working to get it for themselves and to keep others from getting it. in other words, it is inevitable that you will run into and have to fight these powers. if you aren't strong enough you lose. Do you really think luffy will become PK without being stronger than the yonkou. You have to be top dog. Not only that but you have to be strong enough to survive the final war we know is coming, you can be sure the strongest will fight the strongest, and the winner claims One piece. If it happens after OP is claimed then all the strongest will fight that person to claim it. To be PK you gotta be the strongest of in all the seas or you aren't gonna find it let alone keep it. See croc who wanted to be PK and got rekt.

BTW you only keep furthering my point lol. The one to be PK has a tougher road because he has to beat more people like the marines. Im not sure what you are saying here. Of course finding it will be a challenge, but if there was no competition it would be found relatively quickly. It was even said in an SBS that akainu was so strong that if he was the main character he would find One Piece in under a year. That directly implies that strength is the bigger issue than location.

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Again directly implied that the strongest man is closest to one piece.

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Those two images are all thats needed to prove our point. WB is the only one to fight on par with Roger. Roger=Prime WB>Old WB. Garp was the only one to corner him. No mention of an admiral. If an admiral can't corner him, it isnt an extreme diff fight.

Except Garp is Admiral level. If Garp is stronger than each of the Admirals now, and it's highly unlike he is, it's gonna be just a paper thin margin.

Buggy listing being closest to One Piece and being the strongest man alive as two separate points actually indicates the opposite.

Actually, if Akainu was the protagonist, he'd be able to find One Piece in a less than a year because he wouldn't have the Marines stopping him, as well as access to shortcuts pirates don't have access to.

 

[ssjelf]

Except Garp is Admiral level. If Garp is stronger than each of the Admirals now, and it's highly unlike he is, it's gonna be just a paper thin margin.

Buggy listing being closest to One Piece and being the strongest man alive as two separate points actually indicates the opposite.

Actually, if Akainu was the protagonist, he'd be able to find One Piece in a less than a year because he wouldn't have the Marines stopping him, as well as access to shortcuts pirates don't have access to.

Im talking prime garp here. Garp now is probably dead even with akainu.

If he wasnt the strongest man alive don't you think he would be farther from one piece. Although you are right, they are separate points, the fact that he mentioned them both so close to each other means the two aren't mutually exclusive. You can only fit so much in one speech bubble.

Heres how the source translated it "According to the interview between Oda and Yasutaka Nakata, if Akainu becomes the protagonist, he is so strong that he can put an end to ONE PIECE within a year." take what you will from that I guess.

 

[saw2097]

Yeah, I do think Luffy can become Pirate King without being stronger than every Yonko. Luffy can become Pirate King if he has extreme diff fights with the Yonko like he did Rob Lucci. Not only would that make for a hella more entertaining story, it'd make more sense, seeing as Roger and Whitebeard, Pirate King and Yonko, extreme diffed each other, then Roger extreme diffed Garp, who is Admiral level.

Bruh you just admitted to finding One Piece being more complicated than even I was giving it credit for. Stop shooting yourself in the foot just to miss me.

This would only be possible if the final villains were the Yonko.

Keep in mind that Luffy has to defeat them before he becomes King of the Pirates so there will be arcs after the fall of the Yonko and villains after them.

And as it goes in all Shounen the final villains are the strongest, if he doesn't get stronger than the Yonko then he can't beat the final villains.

Also I would like to introduce a issue I think someone else mentioned, we have no guarantee that the admirals are the final villains of the manga, we have seen what they can do, so its likely the author will introduce a stronger villain before the end, who's powers are a mystery.

Also even after becoming King of the Pirates, Luffy can still become stronger. Luffy will only be in his early days as King of the Pirates so he doesn't necessarily have to be at Roger's level right after finding the One Piece.

So using what level Luffy will be at when he faces the admirals, isn't really something that can be used to determine how strong Roger was before he died.

 

[ssjelf]

This would only be possible if the final villains were the Yonko.

Keep in mind that Luffy has to defeat them before he becomes King of the Pirates so there will be arcs after the fall of the Yonko and villains after them.

And as it goes in all Shounen the final villains are the strongest, if he doesn't get stronger than the Yonko then he can't beat the final villains.

Also I would like to introduce a issue I think someone else mentioned, we have no guarantee that the admirals are the final villains of the manga, we have seen what they can do, so its likely the author will introduce a stronger villain before the end, who's powers are a mystery.

Also even after becoming King of the Pirates, Luffy can still become stronger. Luffy will only be in his early days as King of the Pirates so he doesn't necessarily have to be at Roger's level right after finding the One Piece.

So using what level Luffy will be at when he faces the admirals, isn't really something that can be used to determine how strong Roger was before he died.

BB or akainu is gonna be the final villain. Depends on when the war happens. If the war happens before one piece is claimed, luffy will beat akainu in the war then beat BB, if the war happens after he will beat BB then akainu, maybe kong i guess. By the end of this BB will be stronger than an admiral because he is picking up DF. Thats my take on it.

Theres also the gorosei I guess, I wonder what role they will have, it does look like at least the young guy and the sword guy are strong. Although the sword guy will fight zoro and if zoro is WSS there isnt a point to the fight, maybe a precursor to zoro showdown with Mihawk, but that would put gorosei lower than they would need to be to have any true relevance to overall strength of the strawhats. Unless they don't fight the SH of course or if they don't do anything.

 

[saw2097]

BB or akainu is gonna be the final villain. Depends on when the war happens. If the war happens before one piece is claimed, luffy will beat akainu in the war then beat BB, if the war happens after he will beat BB then akainu, maybe kong i guess. By the end of this BB will be stronger than an admiral because he is picking up DF. Thats my take on it.

Theres also the gorosei I guess, I wonder what role they will have, it does look like at least the young guy and the sword guy are strong. Although the sword guy will fight zoro and if zoro is WSS there isnt a point to the fight, maybe a precursor to zoro showdown with Mihawk, but that would put gorosei lower than they would need to be to have any true relevance to overall strength of the strawhats. Unless they don't fight the SH of course or if they don't do anything.

I am actually starting to wonder about that.

It would make more sense for BB to fall before Luffy finds the One Piece because he is depicted as Luffy's primary rival for the One Piece.

And as for Akainu, while he makes sense, I am starting to wonder if he isn't the final villain, as we already know what he can do and we know him a great deal, and that takes away from any big surprise he could have as the final villain.

I am starting to think that Gorosei or someone like them are the final villains, as we know little about them.

 

[Anduril]

This is exactly why I(and others) stop replying to you after some time. We lose interest. In the thread from 2 months ago, you said I didn't have a cohesive understanding of my own points which is essentially no different than saying I don't know what I'm talking about or don't fully understand my own words.

Oh my god.
Let me get this straight, I said,

one person does not have coherent understanding of the points he wants to make

This means - you are not sure about the order in which you want to order your points, its all bits and pieces.
Example - You will start by talking about point 4 then suddenly switch to point 1 and out of the blue you again change the topic to point 3. So you are not sure in what order you want to make your points. Which is way too confusing to give a damn.

The fact remains that you still lied in that thread about me abusing you and then just left. It's not because you loose interest, it's because you have no replies.

Yep. I have a reply:

Why the f*ck do you think making friends is relevant in anyway to Roger in a 1v1 vs an Admiral? Nobody responds to pointless posts

And this thread was about Roger fighting 1vs1 against an admiral, and I stressed that Roger was the Pirate King and a King means he is the top dog when it comes to Pirates (This is confirmed when akainu said to Ace that WB always remained second to Roger), Just like A Captain is the top dog on his ship and a Fleet admiral stands at the top of the marine pyramid.

Instead, this thread was steered towards the point that Roger was Pirate king because of his crew, which is partly correct and partly wrong because it was his power to make friends that created the crew and made them stronger in the first place (you see dedication is a 2 way street, if the captain is willing to fight the world for you, then you are ready to fight the world for your captain) and the fact remains he was still the strongest in that crew.

And if his underling rayleigh could land a blow to kizaru and draw his blood and keep Fighting him (without a scratch to himself) after almost 20 years of being in retirement (Gambling and drinking) and still avoid being captured by Kizaru even though he was a wanted man (after the strawhats disappeared) and could still swim across an entire calm belt, then I highly doubt that a Pirate King would be pushed to High diff beating an admiral. It would be mid diff.

 

[Punk Hazard]

Oh my god.
Let me get this straight, I said,



This means - you are not sure about the order in which you want to order your points, its all bits and pieces.
Example - You will start by talking about point 4 then suddenly switch to point 1 and out of the blue you again change the topic to point 3. So you are not sure in what order you want to make your points. Which is way too confusing to give a damn.

The fact remains that you still lied in that thread about me abusing you and then just left. It's not because you loose interest, it's because you have no replies.

And this thread was about Roger fighting 1vs1 against an admiral, and I stressed that Roger was the Pirate King and a King means he is the top dog when it comes to Pirates (This is confirmed when akainu said to Ace that WB always remained second to Roger), Just like A Captain is the top dog on his ship and a Fleet admiral stands at the top of the marine pyramid.
And if his underling rayleigh could land a blow to kizaru and draw his blood and keep Fighting him (without a scratch to himself) after almost 20 years of being in retirement (Gambling and drinking) and still avoid being captured by Kizaru even though he was a wanted man (after the strawhats disappeared) and could still swim across an entire calm belt, then I highly doubt that a Pirate King would be pushed to High diff beating an admiral. It would be mid diff.
Instead this thread was steered towards the point that Roger was Pirate king because of his crew, which is partly correct but the fact remains he was still the strongest in that crew.

Akainu's words were a deliberate attempt to rile Ace up. He would have said anything to get Ace upset. Half of the shit he was saying wasn't true, considering Whitebeard had the respect of even Garp and Sengoku, while Akainu made him out to be a disgrace. Akainu's words are a horrible argument.

Rayleigh was losing that fight. He scratched Kizaru, they clashed a few times, and he was huffing, while Kizaru was completely fine. Seriously, this is a manga where characters launch each other through walls, break bones, destroy organs, punch with force to shatter steel, and you're wetting yourself over a scratch.

 

[ssjelf]

Akainu's words were a deliberate attempt to rile Ace up. He would have said anything to get Ace upset. Half of the shit he was saying wasn't true, considering Whitebeard had the respect of even Garp and Sengoku, while Akainu made him out to be a disgrace. Akainu's words are a horrible argument.

Rayleigh was losing that fight. He scratched Kizaru, they clashed a few times, and he was huffing, while Kizaru was completely fine. Seriously, this is a manga where characters launch each other through walls, break bones, destroy organs, punch with force to shatter steel, and you're wetting yourself over a scratch.

he certainly wasnt losing at the point the fight ended. Winning, maybe, but not losing, seemed very very close.

 

[Hexuze]

he certainly wasnt losing at the point the fight ended. Winning, maybe, but not losing, seemed very very close.

Didn't you read the sentence right after that? He said it wasn't a close fight since Rayleigh was getting fatigued quickly, whereas Kizaru was just fine.

 

[Anduril]

Akainu's words were a deliberate attempt to rile Ace up. He would have said anything to get Ace upset. Half of the shit he was saying wasn't true, considering Whitebeard had the respect of even Garp and Sengoku, while Akainu made him out to be a disgrace. Akainu's words are a horrible argument.

What riled up ace was when Akainu called WB looser, which he was not and everyone knew that. But it has been stated in the manga by oda and those words have not been contested anywhere in the manga (your argument about respect is just as horrible). If we cannot go by the manga then I think we should go by how you interpret the manga.

Rayleigh was losing that fight. He scratched Kizaru, they clashed a few times, and he was huffing, while Kizaru was completely fine. Seriously, this is a manga where characters launch each other through walls, break bones, destroy organs, punch with force to shatter steel, and you're wetting yourself over a scratch.

That scratch was just to make Kiazaru understand that he was fighting the dark king, as at first he ignored rayleigh thinking he won't be able to match his light speed.
And then why are you wetting yourself over a "pant-huff" when "this is a manga where characters launch each other through walls, break bones, destroy organs, punch with force to shatter steel"
Hypocrisy at its peak eh?
Also there was not a drop of sweat on Rayleigh when Kuma interrupted in the next panel he looked completely in control.

 

[Punk Hazard]

he certainly wasnt losing at the point the fight ended. Winning, maybe, but not losing, seemed very very close.

It wasn't close at all. Kizaru was completely fine while Rayleigh was out of breath due to their clashing. That shows that Kizaru is the one that was winning.

 

[ssjelf]

Didn't you read the sentence right after that? He said it wasn't a close fight since Rayleigh was getting fatigued quickly, whereas Kizaru was just fine.

It wasn't close at all. Kizaru was completely fine while Rayleigh was out of breath due to their clashing. That shows that Kizaru is the one that was winning.

You might want to re read it. Very little was shown at all and every scene they were at a standstill. There was one scene where Rayleigh was talking and it had 3 small pant texts written in it. You guys are talking the smallest indication that someone is fighting and turning it into a vital weakness that Rayleigh had. He was not running out of stamina. Stop blowing things outta proportion He looks just fine in this scan afterwards.

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In fact where is the panting in the bottom right panels in this scan?. Present one panel before and then gone and you are saying he is fatigued.

Spoiler

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The point of those pants is to show you that it isn't easy to hold off kizaru, it isn't to say he can't hold him off.