This is why I absolutely loath this abomination called vs threads. Many of the creators always think they understand the characters they're are talking about better than anyone, especially when they want to go against the mainstream perception of how a fight between characters would end up. And still they are completely oblivious to understanding of the most fundamental concept of such a discussion: context. Everything in a manga happens in a certain context that will decide how things will go and this context is not by default one that pits two characters against each other for the sake of seeing who is the strongest.
Get a reality check, it's a fact that even old, sickly WB could beat each admiral individually. He might be deadly injured afterwards and/or if the three admirals would team up together, they might beat him or have a stalemate, but it's nonsensical on all levels that a single one could beat WB. Then you are disregarding the entire context or in other words you are creating an artificial situation from your own imagination loosely based on OP, but one that does not correspond with the reality that is OP.
Context: Kong, Sengoku, Shanks...all off them acknowledged WB as being superior or that he definitely could bring down the entire marine HQ. They needed 3 admirals and 7 Shichibukai to balance out the power of the 4 Yonkou of which WB was considered the strongest, the man closest to OP and the one who could go toe to toe with Gol D Roger, the Pirate King. They assembled 5 Shichibukai, the 3 admirals, the fleet admiral, countless of vice admirals and a 100 000 man strong army just for him and even then Sengoku believed that, in terms of shear power, he could wipe them all out. On top of that you had BB, at that point a Shichibukai, + 4 or 5 IP level 5 inmates, people that are pretty much Shichibukai level class fighters, in the mix. And even after all that he made them go through hell, nearly breaking the island in half and even making both BB as Sengoku nearly crap their pants... and then you say that one admiral would have been enough to beat him. That's a laughable joke. People aren't overestimating WB, what you are actually saying is that Oda himself is overestimating his own character =/
You don't even need to start listing any specific battle scenes to be sure about this, the way how Oda wrote the character WB alone is enough to confirm this fact. Makes a lot of sense, we gather the most powerful army in the world, we let our HQ island, a centuries old stronghold, nearly be wiped out of the face of the planet, but while we even had no less than 3 admirals present, only one would have been sufficient to beat him. Read the story and don't make up your own.
And when you do start looking at specific battle scenes, following the correct context, that WB is more powerful only becomes that more obvious. WB wasn't there to fight one on one battles, for the duration of most of the fight he fought the entire island. His objective was to free Ace and after he died, he wanted to have as much people of his crew survive and put an end to this era with his death. He wasn't aiming at one on one fights nor the deaths of particular marines. The marines on the other hand wanted to kill both Ace and WB. There's a clear difference in perspective.
WB rarely attacked any of the marines in particular, he went rampaging blasting them away by the hundreds, cleaving the island in half and reducing the HQ nearly to a pile of rubble. In most cases it were the marines who attacked him, but neither Kizaru nor Aokiji were even able to remain close to him for a long period of time. The only times I can remember that WB actually initiated an assault on an individual was on Akainu to stop him, successfully, from interfering with Luffy saving Ace and on Akainu after he killed Ace, where he utterly defeated him in two hits. It's hilarious you call that an ambush when Akainu burned a huge hole in WB chest when he was coughing up blood because of his illness, but WB was beyond all doubt the victor there. That Akainu survived doesn't even matter as WB wasn't busy with seeing who is the strongest of us two. Even if he wanted to kill Akainu for kiling Ace, after Akainu fell into the crevice, there was no reason for him to start thinking about things like 'maybe I should jump after him, he might still be alive' as his objective was to get his crew out. There was no reason for WB to waste anymore time on him. Akainu only crawled out of his hole after WB already died, battlewise those 10 minutes you call it are eons. WB beat Akainu there, otherwise he could have just stood up after WB 2nd hit, no? That he survived the attack doesn't matter squat, the fact that for a brief moment WB was focused on Akainu and that he beat him out of commission for a while and then focused again on fighting the entire army, only confirms that WB is stronger.
*gets beaten horribly by WB, waits till he dies and then pops up again fighting* "hahaha, I'm stronger than WB!". Makes freaking sense.
In a hypothetical fight were WB is only fighting Akainu, what chance does Akainu have when WB already took him down with two hits while he was already mortally wounded and had been fighting an army? None as if his objective was to have Akainu dead for certain, he wouldn't change his attention to other stuff after the 2nd hit. It's ludicrous how you see that as Akainu being equal to WB. In the best of cases he might succeed in mortally wounding WB again, but he himself would have kicked the bucket first. For most of the fight the three admirals focused on fighting individual battles, WB on the other hand was pretty much fighting everyone.
Not to mention at a certain point they needed the combined forces of all 3 marine admirals to stop a single massive attack of WB, a similar attack WB used as the 2nd hit on Akainu, which he was completely unable to block and then fell into a crevice cursing WB....surely the attitude of a winner. If he could win of Akainu, then he also can win of Aokiji and Kizaru as the differences in strength aren't that big between the three of them.
It's a hardcore fact that WB, even old and sick, is more powerful than any admiral individual. Both the context provided as the battles fought prove that. But no doubt you are still going to react on it and claim that you are right, completely ignoring the facts, and blablabla. I so hate these threads. In 90% of the cases there isn't even a clear answer as the involved characters never fought in a series, but still people are going to say they can and in the cases, like this one, it's certain how they end up, there are people going to claim it's not true.
WB is stronger, face the facts, otherwise the entire Marine Ford arc doesn't make sense.
