And all I'm saying is that these are your impressions. That's totally fine, people can interpret things differently. But what you can't argue against is the outcome of almost every single [Warlord / Top Commander] vs. [Admiral / Yonkou] encounter. Can you comprehend why I value the final outcome of those clashes more than our gut feelings? Because that's why I said this is extremely obvious to me, I can't argue against it even if I wanted to. I'm not taking a side, I look at every single encounter and check the outcome - and in this case the outcome is so consistent that we can speak of a trend, even if the circumstances obviously vary:
! Queen vs. Big Mom: Queen is completely stomped by BM, taken out in two hits. The pecking order is absolutely clear, but he regenerates, cooks up a rough plan, stalls for time and actually succeeds in taking her out (even if that was mostly a side effect of her amnesia).
! Jinbe vs. Big Mom: Jinbe disables Prometheus and blocks a named attack from Big Mom, something even 700-million-bounty Perospero didn't expect, the oldest son who played the exposition mook for most of the arc. In the end Big Mom still spelled out the facts though: Don't think for a second you can win through strength. Jinbe is blasted off the Sunny, but recovers and uses his strongest punch to knock Big Mom a few meters away. Impressive stuff, but in the end he "only" managed to buy time and get her off the ship.
! Jozu vs. Aokiji: Jozu is allowed to get in one free shot against a defenseless Admiral, one suckerpunch with all his might. Aokiji bleeds from the mouth, the first time we see an Admiral get injured (if we don't count the minor cut Kizaru received from Rayleigh). Jozu then manages to stall Aokiji for a short time, until he gets distracted and loses the fight instantly. You spot the difference? Jozu has a free shot and slightly injures Aokiji. Aokiji has a free shot and Jozu is practically dead. This was the outcome of their clash.
Marco vs. Kizaru, Aokiji, Akainu: Marco was basically everywhere and nowhere. He blocked, stalled, intervened - with success. His fruit is perfect for that kind of job and he's the first commander of Whitebeard's crew after all. Whitebeard's Katakuri, his King, his Beckman. But apart from all that stalling he couldn't do damage to any Admiral. He even had a chance to doubleteam Akainu with Vista, they even got to slice his NECK. Nothing! And even when the other commanders + Crocodile backed him up, they couldn't do anything vs. Akainu. Except for stalling.
Jinbe vs. Akainu: Jinbe blocks Akainu's Magma Fist with one hand and is perfectly fine after. One of his biggest feats, apart from him stalling Big Mom. But that was all he could do. Stall, buy time. He even noted that attacking Akainu with Fishman Karate was no use. And once he turned his back to Akainu the latter just punched through Jinbro like a blob of butter.
Sabo vs. Fujitora: This might have changed now that Sabo is trained with the Mera Mera, but again: All he could do was stall Fujitora. His personal goal apart from that was to push Fujitora at least hard enough so that he has to fight seriously. That's all he expected from that clash. He knew he couldn't win, Koala knew he coudn't win. Both understood that this was an extremely careless move that could have gone terribly wrong.
! And these are just the cases where it came to a direct confrontation, not even talking about stuff like Doflamingo acknowleding that Fujitora was out of his league (but that there are others ways to kill someone you are no match for). Or Blackbeard with the 2 most powerful fruits in the series + his gang of legendary Impel Down prisoners not even trying to go against Akainu. He knew there was only defeat waiting for him - or at least losses possible he wasn't willing to accept.
You know, in German there is an extremely fitting word to describe what Oda is doing in all of these clashes and I couldn't find a satisfying english translation, so here it goes:
"Achtungserfolg"
It basically means that someone loses a fight / competition, but still performed well enough that it gains him or her respect from the masses. The outcome was still a loss, as expected by most, but the performance was still good enough to earn people's recognition.
See, that's the thing. Some people like to interpret that "Achtungserfolg" however they see fit, for completely different reasons. Some like to overblow the achievement because it's their favorite character. Others may need to justify a completely different theory, so it's just one piece of their headcanon (and if you take it away the whole theory collapses, like a house of cards). Others might just want to win an internet argument (that's the saddest part, let's not go there).
I'm not even saying that I'm above that. I'm probably super biased in other areas and I might not even realize it. But when some say that the achievements of Marco, Jozu, Queen, Jinbe etc. signify that they are close or even remotely close to the Admirals/Yonkou then I can only shake my head.
Because, and here is another German saying:
"Entscheidend ist, was hinten rauskommt" (The final result matters).
And what is the final result in all those cases? The Top commanders / Warlords stall, buy time & interfere. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
Absolutely, the YC or Sabo's level cant win against the Admiral, thats imposible. Only Yonkou himself and maybe Mihawk can compare to the Admiral. Even Roger , Whitebeard, Garp and Sengoku on the same level. Until now i still dont know who will win. They all on the same level to me.