Oars was definitely more powerful than Moria himself without his highly unstable and precarious eating shadow power up (that bit him in the ass relatively quickly). Remember, this was back when Oda actually showed restraint, subtlety and cleverness in his writing. It wasn't the grug &quot;MAIN VILLAIN OF THE ARC: STRONGER&quot; bullshit it is now, which resulted in Doflamingo destroying an entire island non-chalantly while he turned everything non-organic he touched into messes of strings.