Why I used to have Mihawk > Shanks?

It always seemed natural to me after my very first watch through of One Piece because of two scenes.

The first one is when Mihawk refused Shanks's challenge and called him "one-armed has-been", while Shanks had nothing to say in return. https://scans-hot.leanbox.us/manga/One-Piece-Digital-Colored-Comics/0096-016.png

I thought "Oh, so Mihawk places himself considerably above Shanks, he doesn't even see him as a challenge".

And later Whitebeard told us that Mihawk and Shanks used to have duels. And then Shanks proceeded to clash with WB using a sword.

I thought "Shanks fights with a sword, and he used to duel Mihawk for the title, so it seems Shanks is definitely swordsman, and Mihawk ofc surpassed him, otherwise he wouldn't be the strongest swordsman".

Given the context at the time it made perfect sense, and since I was a Zoro fanboy at that time (not anymore really) and I think Mihawk himself is very cool, such state of affairs suited my bias very well.

So I interpreted the rest of the story with this preconceived notion. Even when Shanks' feats and portrayal far surpassed Mihawk's, I only took it as proxy hype for Mihawk, and thought Mihawk's own turn to shine will come later.

However many years have passed, and we are already already headed into the final part of the story, and Mihawk still haven't got even near the amount of hype I expected of someone stronger than Shanks.

While Shanks is out there making a clown out of a marine admiral, Mihawk fucks around with an actual clown. As impressive as Mihawk's bounty is, it's lower than Shank's.

Also of course how could I not mention the height thing. https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiecePowerScaling/comments/x00zre/thoughts_on_this_concerning_recent_arguments/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

And there seems to be more hints that Shanks may be more than just a swordsman, like his latest conqueror's haki showings, or how Brannew only specified Mihawk surpasses Shanks in "sword technique", not that he is just stronger than Shanks. It seems Shanks has some haki techniques that can't be integrated into swordsmanship.

While hope still lingers inside me that Goathawk will live up to my expectations, it appears far more likely to me that Oda is just writing Shanks to be stronger, and it has gotten quite hard to deny it.

𝙎𝙤 𝙞𝙩'𝙨 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙜𝙤, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙢𝙮 𝙛𝙧𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣.

I still think Shanks and Mihawk are quite close. Shanks only edges out due to very advanced and overpowered applications of conqueror's haki, but Mihawk is clearly considerably superior in a sword to sword fight with no mental attacks/haki kamehameha bullshit.

Btw Shanks>Mihawk>Kaido 👋