User blog comment:Imhungry4444/One Piece Chapter 696 Review/@comment-3119203-20130124011312/@comment-3119203-20130124020926

I think I'm not the only one making assumptions about the Yonko. Simply going off their reputations, they are monstrous people. Right now, Luffy has neither the strength nor the strategy to fight one of the Yonko, let alone two. How do I know? The fight with Hody nearly killed him, and Caesar could have easily killed him if he wasn't such an idiot. As far as the Yonko not being close to Whitebeard.....given their influence and power that we have seen so far, I think I can safely say that they are the pirates closest to his level right now.

Luffy has to beat them all to get to the top? Not necessarily. Luffy's problem is his strict lack of strategy, which is what I was complaining about. Even if he wanted to defeat every Yonko, he has to have enough common sense to know that fighting more than one people as strong as Shanks is not a good idea.