User blog comment:Kaido King of the Beasts/A Rival for Luffy/@comment-72.168.160.8-20160119220811/@comment-10543621-20160120035924

^This. Although I'd say Smoker would be more the Garp parallel. To me, I don't think Smoker is irrelevant yet. He himself is getting stronger and he intends to continue getting stronger. He hasn't given up on arresting Luffy, and I see him relationship with Luffy to be potentially similar to what Garp had with Roger. In the end, Garp and Roger never had any real animosity. Garp even ended up as the one who took care of Roger's kid.

Smoker and Luffy seem to be heading towards that direction in terms of their relationship dynamics. Smoker certainly isn't going to give up being a marine, but his stance towards Luffy has gotten considerably softer.

For Coby, I think Luffy is more of a rival to him than Coby is a rival to Luffy. Coby is working hard and becoming stronger, but their gap is still too big now. You can't really consider Coby as a viable rival for Luffy.