Luffy vs. Crocodile: Who Won the Fight? (& Is He Really Stronger?)

One Piece is an anime that certainly has its fair share of strong and powerful characters. And while its protagonist, Monkey D. Luffy, is certainly among them, there are some characters that are even more powerful than the cheerful and quirky protagonist of the manga. In this article, we are going to analyze one such character, as we are going to pit Luffy against Sir Crocodile, the leader of the Baroque Works and a later Warlord of the Sea, to see who the stronger of the two is.

Although it took him three times to do it, Luffy was ultimately able to defeat Sir Crocodile. It was a much less experienced Luffy and it took him a while before he finally figured out how to fight Crocodile and exploit the weakness of his Devil Fruit. Now, observing how much Luffy has grown, he could easily deal with Crocodile.

The rest of this article will further elaborate on the above-given answer, as we are going to compare Luffy and Crocodile in more detail. Through several categories, you are going to see who the stronger of the two is and why our answer is like it is, i.e., why Luffy was ultimately able to defeat Crocodile when they fought.

Physical powers

Luffy is endowed with immense physical strength, enough to lift gigantic boulders and shatter steel with his bare hands. His physical strength derives in part from the workouts his grandfather Garp subjected him to as a child, where he survived critical circumstances and used to face huge ferocious beasts. Even as a child he was able to defeat grown-ups and endure Polchemy’s torture.

His physical strength is such as to overwhelm the strongest fugitives of the eastern sea and to rival even that of the fish-men, as demonstrated in the battles against Arlong and Hody Jones, whose strength was even higher than that of the average of their race. . In particular against Hody, after two years of training, he showed himself clearly superior, so much so that he defeated him despite being powered by Energy Steroids.

In addition to his Logia-type ability, which allows him to turn into sand to avoid injury, Crocodile possesses a high amount of stamina and strength, being able to take a generous amount of hits in his third match with Luffy, or even a direct punch from Commander Jozu. Crocodile also displays great physical strength.

In his first confrontation against Luffy he managed to pierce his body with his hook leaving him seriously injured and on the verge of death, he was also able to strangle Galdino with his hand while, at the same time, dehydrating him with the power of his fruit and leaving Nico Robin mortally wounded by stabbing her with his hook.

Well, this one is really tough to compare now, as Crocodile was definitely more powerful when the two of them fought the first times, but Luffy has since surpassed that level, so we have to give the point to Luffy.

Points: Luffy 1, Crocodile 0

Devil Fruit

Luffy ate Gomu Gomu Devil Fruit which made him rubber, giving him the ability to stretch his body parts and hit enemies from a long distance. Although as a child he had problems in fully controlling his power, after an intense training of over ten years, Luffy was able to use the fruit to exponentially improve his physical strength and his agility, thus making him a dangerous opponent.

Despite his fighting style sometimes appears improvised, it is precisely his creativity that makes him an unpredictable opponent, capable of overturning critical situations by adapting from time to time to combat. His rubber body also makes him extremely durable and immune to marine bullets, normal punches and even electricity.

However, he is not immune to swords and knives, as well as to dehydration or poison, although after the fight with Magellan he becomes immune to a wide variety of these.

Crocodile consumed a Logia-type Devil Fruit known as the Suna Suna no Mi, which allows him to generate and manipulate sand, as well as turn into it. He has shown to perfectly master his ability to the point of being able to unconsciously turn into sand when attacked. A clear example of this was when Doflamingo cut off his head at Marineford when he was distracted.

In a desert area, his powers make him nearly invincible. He often uses his ability to create huge sandstorms, create sharp weapons or quicksand. He can also suck all the moisture from any target, living or not, by touching it with his right hand. Said ability allows him to completely destroy his environment, killing and macerating any biological substance through dehydration.

Crocodile has one of the more powerful Devil Fruits in the series, but Luffy managed to find a way around its powers even back then. Now that Luffy has activated Gear 5, Crocodile’s Devil Fruit would be fairly useless.

Points: Luffy 2, Crocodile 0

Haki

Luffy was trained by Rayleigh to become an expert Haki user. He knows how to use the Observation Haki, which he instinctively used for the first time against Mihawk, avoiding a swing that would have cut off his arms. He also mastered the Armament Haki at high levels, making it an essential part of Gear Fourth. Using this ability in combination with the powers of his own devil fruit, Luffy is also able to ignite his fists thanks to his friction.

He also knows how to use the rarest form of Haki, the Royal Haki, which is the one he prefers. With it, he was able to knock out fifty thousand fish-men at once. During his confrontation with Kaido, he proved to be one of the very few individuals able to use her to enhance his attacks. His third fight against the emperor also ripped through the sky.

As far as it is known, Crocodile cannot use any of the three Haki. He has never shown any Haki skills nor has it been said by anyone that Crocodile can use Haki.

Well, as the text itself states, Crocodile has no Haki skills at all, whereas Luffy has mastered all three of these skills, which is why Luffy – clearly – wins this point as well.

Points: Luffy 3, Crocodile 0

Weapons

Luffy rarely uses weapons in combat, mostly due to his inexperience and the inability to use them. In his childhood, he wielded a metal pipe and that is probably the most sophisticated weapon he successfully handled. In Arlong Park, Luffy briefly tried to fight with swords but failed miserably.

In addition to being one of the few characters to show some degree of mastery over his Devil Fruit, Crocodile is also a formidable opponent in close combat. In his third match with Luffy, he used his grappling hook exclusively for most of the match, only resorting to his fruit powers when he found himself in a bind. His hook is made of a gold alloy that is extremely resistant to physical shock and corrosion. His durability proved to be especially impressive when he didn’t take any visible damage after colliding with Mihawk’s legendary black sword.

As we have pointed out on several occasions, Luffy never wins in this category simply because he doesn’t use weapons. Crocodile, on the other hand, is a weapons master and that is why he easily wins this final point.

Points: Luffy 3, Crocodile 1

Luffy vs. Crocodile: Who wins?

We could, actually, give you a proper analysis of the things we have written above but that wouldn’t really do the trick when compared with what we have decided to go with. Namely, as Luffy and Crocodile have, indeed, fought in the manga and the anime, we thought that it would be better for us to just recap these fights to confirm what we have said above.

Luffy fights Crocodile a total of three times. First, they fight in episodes 110 and 111. Their second fight happened in episodes 121 to 123. Finally, they fought in episodes 124 to 126. In the first fight, Luffy first saved Vivi from Crocodile’s hook and stayed behind to fight him.

Crocodile was unaffected by Luffy’s attacks, but was easily upset by his confidence and demeanor. Crocodile attacked Luffy and dried up his arm with his power. Luffy started to panic but remembered the water Toto had given him and used it to give his arm back. He pulled out a new technique and engulfed the upper half of Crocodile’s sandy body, which infuriated him even more.

Crocodile told Luffy to die with Yuba and unleashed a sandstorm. Luffy was very upset to learn that the sandstorm would end up in Yuba, but when he tried to complain, he got impaled by Crocodile’s hook. Crocodile apparently stabbed the water bottle around Luffy’s neck on his way to his chest. When the water from Luffy’s bottle fell on Crocodile’s arm, Luffy suddenly grabbed the arm and squeezed it hard enough to crunch it a bit.

Crocodile was surprised that Luffy survived and threw him into the quicksand where he was quickly overwhelmed. During this fight, Luffy noticed that the water made Crocodile unable to turn into sand as he and the barrel of water Toto gave were pierced by Crocodile’s hook. Realizing this, he brought a huge barrel of water to aid him in his fight against the Shichibukai.

But as Luffy fought Crocodile again, he quickly realized that his water barrel could easily be compromised. Realizing this, Luffy decided to switch tactics by drinking all of his water and storing it within himself, essentially becoming what he referred to as “Aqua Luffy”. While this new tactic infuriated Crocodile, it proved to be very effective for Luffy.

Unfortunately, he’s taken enough advantage that Crocodile stops holding back. He then used his strongest technique to turn the entire area they occupied into sand. Although Luffy was able to escape Crocodile’s devastating eroding powers, he was caught by his opponent. As Crocodile’s hand held Luffy, he was severely dehydrated and was once again left for dead. Luckily, water bubbles that Luffy missed earlier fell on him, waking him up from his near-death state.

Crocodile was again confronted by Luffy. Luffy ran towards Crocodile and gave him a direct punch in the face. Crocodile was surprised at this since Luffy was no longer carrying water. He finally figured out that what allowed Luffy to hit him was the blood from his wounds.

Realizing he was facing someone he should no longer underestimate, he removed the top part of his hook, revealing a poisonous weapon. Luffy fought it off and got the upper hand but eventually got hit by the hook and was poisoned. However, his determination to defeat Crocodile easily overcame this, much to the latter’s frustration.

As the battle continued, Luffy kicked Crocodile into the air. While doing so, Luffy was blasted with one of Crocodile’s powerful techniques. Luffy however resisted the attack and prepared to fight back. Using a series of moves, Luffy propelled himself towards Crocodile to deliver the final blow. As a last resort, Crocodile tried to stop Luffy by turning his hand into blades of sand.

That didn’t stop Luffy from punching through the sand with his bare fists and unleashing a flurry of blows at his opponent. Luffy attacked Crocodile with such force that he penetrated a layer of pure bedrock and sent Crocodile flying. After being defeated, Crocodile’s Devil Fruit effect that prevented rain was broken and Alabasta’s rain returned. All of this confirms what we have said, and that is that Luffy is, indeed, stronger than Crocodile.

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