One Piece Chapter 1058 Discussion

ColtBuntline said:

Luffy almost always fought the strongest opponent, but he also always lost at least once before finally beating his opponent, and always suffered the most to beat his opponent, which makes his feats arguably less impressive than Sanji's, since Sanji always beat his opponent at the first try, and with the least difficulty of the three, even in the cases in which he was clearly by far the most nerfed one, like in Enies Lobby and in Onigashima.

Also, Luffy had trouble to beat Mr. 3, getting caught by his wax, whereas against Sanji Mr.3 had no chance and lost just like any fodder.
Sanji was the first to get through CP9's tekkai, and almost knocked out Blueno the first time they met, whereas Luffy needed to use gear 2 to finally beat Blueno.
Sanji owned Vergo, throwing him into the wall twice, and not getting hit even once, and Vergo was admittedly stronger than Caesar and equal to Pika and Diamante in terms of position in Doflamingo's crew, whereas Luffy lost to Caesar the first time they fought.
And comparing the first time Sanji fought Doflamingo and the first time Luffy fought Doflamingo, Sanji did better against Doflamingo, since Doflamingo recognized that Sanji was very strong and even let out a sound of agony while he was blocking Sanji's kicks, whereas when he fought Luffy Luffy lost like a weakling being totally overwhelmed by Doflamingo.

Luffy can do almost nothing better than Sanji;

The only enemy Luffy could beat that Sanji couldn't was Enel, because his body is rubber. And Sanji also lost to Arlong, but that was after his internal organs had been terribly hurt by the water pressure and many of his ribs were still broken because of what happened in Baratie. And even then, with his body hurt like that, he saved Luffy underwater, which allowed Luffy to beat Arlong after Arlong threw him into the water.

Luffy can't do anything underwater without a special bubble, he was only able to produce fire after the time-skip, whereas Sanji was already able to produce fire in Enies Lobby, and Sanji can easily sky-walk whenever he wants, whereas Luffy needs to use some transformations, which deplenish his stamina making him need to rest for days afterwards, just to be able to sky-walk.

The only relevant good thing that Luffy has in comparison to Sanji, besides resistance to electricity, is conqueror haki, but Sanji has superior speed, durability, regeneration, heat, and observation haki.

So with all these things considered, I've always seen Sanji as stronger than Luffy. The only factors that create the illusion that Luffy is stronger are the fact that he's the protagonist, the fact he's the captain, and the fact his bounty is always superior. But in terms of feats, Sanji is superior.