User blog comment:Fallenbladr/The Elite Guards Plot & Stuff/@comment-7890302-20141112233933/@comment-5398287-20141113012956

Honestly, Robert didn't "match" Shunsui. It's true that he managed to give him some fairly severe injuries, which made for perfect rematch material, but both times Shunsui was distracted or otherwise caught off-guard, and we've seen quite a few times that characters can wound those more powerful than themselves with surprise attacks.

While you're correct that Royd beat Kenpachi without having copied Yhwach's spiritual power, he didn't really force Yamamoto to get serious so much as Yamamoto, believing he was the real Yhwach, wanted to utterly obliterate him with his Bankai from the start.

Bazz-B has been an all-around badass, but his fight with Hitsugaya isn't really good evidence of saying he's beyond captain-class: he was fighting ice with fire. Enough said.

Äs only managed to really overpower Byakuya once he had stolen Senbonzakura Kageyoshi, which is super duper strong and stuff, required Vollstandig to overwhelm Rukia with her Shikai, and was effortlessly defeated once she went Bankai.

Mask only defeated Kensei and Rose due to The Superstar and their own blunders when fighting him (Kensei not taking out James first and Rose explaining the power of his Bankai).

Gremmy...ugh. Aside from that, though, Kenpachi had the upper hand for essentially the entire battle because he's Kenpachi and because Gremmy wasn't pragmatic enough to just imagine him dead.

Point being, while you're entirely correct that various Sternritter have given notably powerful Shinigami difficult fights, something I greatly appreciate in this arc, with the exception of Royd v. Kenpachi in the court of asswhupping, they've never done it based on their own initial, base level of power alone, without any outside factors. They've always had the element of surprise, or a boost from their Schrift, or elemental superiority, and so on.