User blog comment:StrawKid/Shanks vs Blackbeard/@comment-53539-20120128144913/@comment-3119203-20120128172044

Somehow, I doubt that Shanks was stronger than WB. If anything, they were roughly equal. It's hard to compare them considering Shanks hardly fought, but being Yonko, and considering that Shanks had no problem taking on WB, then I think that they are a match in fighting strength. It is really speculative to judge Shanks' strength right now, so I will leave that unmarked. You may say that he blasted through a Marine blockade, but honestly, unless there were admirals there, I wouldn't expect that to be a momentous feat.

As for BB, remember that Whitebeard was near-dead, and still BB took a considerable beating. It finally took nearly BB's entire crew blasting away at WB from point-blank range for quite some time until he died. Even if they hadn't done that, WB would have died soon in that battle anyways. No matter how strong WB is, you can't go along very far with half a face.

The reason BB didn't wanna fight Shanks was because 1) He knew he couldn't control his powers. 2) His crewmates weren't entirely loyal to him yet. 3) He was already wounded and 4) He was up against a man whose strength was comparable to and unwounded Whitebeard. BB may have been all eager to fight Garp and Sengoku, but that was a heat-of-the-moment decision that he didn't really think about. And conisder this, once Shanks showed up, it would be BB versus Shanks, Sengoku, and Garp. Do you thiink they would just take turns? No. They would rush him and kick his ass as soon as possible.

The only thing that is a real indication of Shanks strength is the Kaido incident. He managed to block off Kaido somehow, and arrive at Marineford within a day or so. Considering Kaido was a Yonko, this is pretty impressive.