Nice analogy especially if you consider the "low" ranks of both these characters. I mean if Garp is such a legendary Marine Officer from Gold Rogers time which would be even before 22 years then how come that guys like Kuzan and Sakazuki are Admirals already respectively Sengoku is Chief Admiral? I mean strenght is not everything, there surely must have been an reason in attitude problems too (especially if he´s the grandfather of Luffy) that may have hold him back from the BIG promotion.
And if you now look at Smoker, it has been said that if he wouldn´t have that attitude that he has, he´d long be above captain level (if he still is a captain because we never found out what actually happened to his promotion).
Well it is all higly speculative I´m saying here, but this could be another intended similarity between those two. Besides Smoker basically is the hunter of the Strawhats. He´s been chasing them since Loguetown and last time we saw him he didn´t seem to be interested in letting them go.