Sanji and Marco's fight seems close, but it really isn't.
Marco has good AP feats in overpowering a casual Kizaru in the air (although it did no damage), however this simply upscales Sanji. When comparing Marco and Sanji's AP, it's important to note that Queen can be used, as they both have feats against him. We see Marco attack Queen twice (
here and
here). When looking at the actual amount of damage Marco dealt to Queen and comparing it to what Sanji has shown against Queen, it's clear who has superior AP. Even before awakening his Exoskeleton, a single kick from Diable Jambe Sanji was able to kick Queen with so much power that his head was
literally spinning like a helicopter to where it allowed Queen to levitate. What's impressive about this is that Queen was unable to control himself and stop his head from spinning. This feat alone already showed that Sanji's AP is at the very least relative to Marco's, but that's not even the end of it. With a Mutton Mallet, Sanji was able to deal
just as much damage, if not more on a Hybrid Queen than Marco could do on either Queen's Human or Full Zoan forms. After awakening his Exoskeleton, we know that Sanji got a
huge AP boost, large enough where it was able to turn normal children into
superhumans that can bend steel bars. At Sanji's peak, using his Exoskeleton, Jambes, and Enhanced Speed, his AP would be several times superior to Marco's.
Sanji's speed without activating his Exoskeleton and Marco have
identical speed feats to each other, being able to situationally outpace Queen, although Sanji did it to a superior version of Queen. Sanji got faster after awakening his Exoskeleton, and can boost his speed vastly with Ifrit Jambe, to FTE levels above that with his Enhanced Speed, or combine the two for even greater speed and AP, meaning Sanji takes this category handily.
Sanji's durability is better as well. Even without his fully developed Exoskeleon, he was able to remain unscathed by Queen's attacks, while Marco's
physical body had holes
blown through them by the AP of Queen's attacks.
Sanji is also for more tactical and intelligent than Marco. Just read Sanji's intelligence section on his profile. No need to explain further.
Marco is more versatile, but what does that entail in this fight? His ranged attacks won't really land due to Sanji's greater speed and the starting distance of 10 meters, and his regeneration doesn't really mean much due to Sanji's Haki, which I'll elaborate on later.
Something people don't realize about Haki negating specific abilities is that simply having greater Haki doesn't mean that you automatically negate them. Unless your name is Kaidou or Big Mom who seem to passively coat themselves in Haki, or use Fullbody Haki as a technique in battle like Vergo or Pica, you're not going to passively negate/resist abilities. Sanji, although having weaker Haki, would still be able to negate Marco's regeneration until Marco negates Sanji's regeneration negation with his own Haki. The reason this is an important factor is because of Sanji's vast speed advantage. Because at his peak, Sanji would be able to land several kicks before he could even react, Marco would have a hard time trying to first activate his Haki on the area kicked to stop the regeneration negation, and then use his fruit to regenerate. Even if he does all of that, more kicks from Sanji would be landing. Marco would be spending most of his time and energy recovering from Sanji's Haki coated kicks to even try to fight back, and if he did, Sanji's
seemingly passive Kenbun would allow him to dod
ge and follow up with even more kicks.
So yeah, Marco does have better Buso, but it isn't the advantage/wincon you would think it would be in this specific matchup.
"Marco has the flight advantage" is a take I've also heard, which I'm confused on. Do we really consider flying via flapping 2 wings easier to fight in the air with to literally just running and jumping on the air? Sanji can quite literally change his directions on any axis at will without any issues and while continuing to fight, while Marco has to flap his wings. Marco may have regular flight while Sanji has psuedo-flight, but just judging who has the advantage there via the names doesn't make much sense to me.
Here's how I see the fight going:
In the beginning of the fight, Marco and Sanji are pretty competitive, with Marco having the upper hand due to his regen, their relative speed allowing Marco to keep up, and his AP slowly chipping away as Sanji's defenses. Once Sanji realizes that if the fight kept going like that he may lose, he'd activate his Exoskeleton by flipping his eyebrows. Now in his Exo Mode, Sanji is able to turn the tables slightly, with him now having superior AP, superior Speed, superior Durability, and regeneration, allowing him to more consistently avoid and counter attacks, as well as not take much damage if he ever gets tagged or just flat out heal from the attack. Once the fight goes on like this for a while, Sanji would decide to try to wrap up the fight as quickly as he can. Sanji at this point would activate his enhanced speed, which would be enough to go FTE to Marco, and hit him with a
Haki coated Hell's Memories kick,
following up behind him with another kick to set up a
chain of attacks to overwhelm Marco. While getting hit with these attacks, Marco would likely be able to
grab onto Sanji, and
squeeze him, messing up his insides with its sheer pressure. After that, Sanji would
simply regenerate, and recover from Marco's squeeze. Realizing that he
now must end the fight, Sanji would go into his enhanced speed mode again to disappear from Marco's sight and activate Ifrit Jambe, where in a sequence of Haki coated burning blitzing kicks, Sanji would overwhelm Marco's durability, regeneration, reactions, and heat resistance. Finishing off the fight, Sanji would end with a large Boeuf Burst explosion, which would take Marco out.
Sanji wins.
Although Marco does have some advantages such as superior Haki, regeneration, and flame nullification, he likely wouldn't be able to use them to the best of his ability due to Sanji's speed, haki, and heat. In the end, Sanji's superior physical stats and intelligence is what would give him the win.
