He was acknowledging them as a literal threat to the world government.

"Admirals are literally supposed to be able to either beat them or hold them off for a huge amount of time."

And this situation was apparent to be the latter case which you mentioned. Both the situations of an Admiral directly fighting a Yonko has ended in their loss and their failure to either beat or hold off a Yonko.

These fights were put in the Marineford arc for the sole reason of establishing realities of the differences of strength between an Admiral and a Yonko, especially when Emperors were pretty much shrouded in mystery while Admirals were seen as invincible up until this point.

Well then again, akainu was beating most of the WB and was exhausted, and THEN shanks came. And also, yes if the admirals were put up against the yonkos, they would lose but also we should acknowledge them to be equal to them.

Beating the most out of Whitebeard while exhausted? Whitebeard the count of the wounds in total, during the Marineford battle, was,

267 stab Wounds

152 bullet wounds

Tanked 46 cannon shells

Along with half his head burned, and a hole in his chest.

Accompanied by his old age and we've clearly seen him on life support much earlier during the series.

Even then, it was a one-sided slaughter for Whitebeard, especially when Akainu damn near died during the fight. I don't think this is equal in any way shape or form.

He had a stroke or heart attack at one point in the battle and walked it off

He just like that

Whitebeard got two holes in him, by akainu, and in the manga a cleasr scoop out of his head. And he sneaked akainu and hit him with all his strength and Akainu I got back upo and continued to slaughter his commanders. Akainu had more damage from aokiji and him fighting.

^, but we dont know what damage Akainu sustained from Aokiji. However Akainu's showcase against Whitebeard showed that Whitebeard>=Akainu, as Whitebeard was on life support with cancer and severely slowed but could still manage to tag Akainu several times and overwhelm him with pure power.

So, pure attack power would go to yonkos. The other stats like speed, durability, depends, and in those it can go either way from yonkos to admirals. But its clear that yonkos are more powerful.

Akainu was on life support???? You mean whitebeard,

Admirals literally cou;le take the current yonkos on for sure. Old whitebeard would get demolished by akainu and yes he was on cancer, but it is still a feat. Akainu did the moist damage to him, and whitebeard didnt leave any remarkable damage on him.

(yes I did mean whitebeard)

Akainu for the most part was evenly matched with oldbeard (oldbeard could squash him, overwhelm him at one point, and make him cough up blood, and oldbeard really only got tagged 3 times, twice when he was unable to move because of his cancer, and once during direct confrontation which would be the only good feat for Akainu here aka the infamous half head gone scene, BUT at the same time Akainu was easily keeping up and severely damaged Whitebeard showing his strength and offensive power is extremely high)

Yes i do give some points to whitebeard like his haki abilities WOULDNT change and could still use it and also his defense and endurance, but yeah. I think we’re at a standstill here so on to the next post for m,e