User blog comment:Haki73/Mihawk vs Rayleigh/@comment-1949364-20100726054834

Rayleigh. No doubt. He was the first mate of the Pirate King. I look at it like this: Zoro, who is sorta the unofficial first mate to Luffy (the future Pirate King), will one day be the strongest swordsman of the world. So as the sorta first mate to the future Pirate King he would have to beat Mihawk. So, the previous first mate to the Pirate King should also be able to beat Mihawk too. Well, that's my reasoning. You never know. Rayleigh is pretty old.