Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-12301089-20131211070550/@comment-1904799-20131212200427

In regards to the original question, I think raw strength is something that is vastly overestimated as valuable in the Bleach canon. Kenpachi has a ton of raw strength, being able to kick significant amounts of ass with no Bankai and a Shikai that has no discernible special powers. That being said, he lost a fight against Royd Lloyd, an otherwise unimportant member of the Vandenreich. Though we don't see exactly how Royd defeats Kenpachi, I have to assume that Royd employed the use of at least a few Vandenreich-exclusive abilities.

The thing about Kenpachi is that, prior to his bout with Royd, he had only ever gone up against enemies who had the same basic abilities as he did; namely, his opponents were always those who augmented their physical strength. The only reason he was able to win against Tosen was because he fell back on his raw physical power and managed to sneakily gain the upper hand. He fought well against Nnoitra because Nnoitra's abilities only involved spawning more arms to fight with. He fought well against Yammy because A) Byakuya aided in the fight somewhat, and B) Yammy's abilities involved getting physically larger. He "fought" well against Giriko because Giriko's abilities involved, what else, getting a physical buff.

Basically what I'm saying is Kenpachi's physical strength is unparalleled, and a Bankai would, hypothetically, put him into nigh-unreachable territories of physical strength. But against enemies that don't just hack-and-slash like he does, I don't think Kenpachi would stand much of a chance, as demonstrated by his loss against Royd.