User blog comment:Bloody Bankai/The Plot and Characters in Bleach ( Spoilers inside, please avoid this post if you do not read the manga as well as watch the anime )/@comment-1454424-20091021005642

Well look, during the SS arc Ganju (Ganju!) beat Yumichka! Are you going to use that as a basis to say Ganju is in fact stronger then Yumichka? Heck no! Now we can say that Ichigo is stronger then Renji and Ikkaku. Even though Ichigo hasn't gone up against either of their bankai it's still pretty save to say that he would most likely beat those two again and each and every time. But Byakuya and Kenpachi... that's a tough one.

Firstly Kenpachi, he hadn't had a good fight in ages, i.e. he was rusty, and had developed the Nnoitra like arrogance of no one being able to cut him etc. His draw with Ichigo rekindled Kenpachi's love of fighting and his desire to get stronger, his said as much during his monologue after the fight. Not to mention it humbled Kenpachi in his own way. Still Ichigo with bankai + mask might, might be able to win against Kenpachi again. But just his shikai... nope, will never, ever, ever happen again.

Byakuya was an interesting case. Because technically Ichigo did beat Byakuya while Ichigo was all out. Remembering that it was Ichigo's hollow that wounded Byakuya enough to give Ichigo a chance to destroy Byakuya's sword. Byakuya himself was internally conflicted between his desire to protect Rukia and his desire to uphold the law AND he was underestimating Ichigo thinking Ichigo was just a human with borrowed shinigami powers or something like that. I bet you Byakuya would have taken Ichigo a lot more seriously if he knew Isshin was a shinigami. So Byakuya vs Ichigo round 2 would probably go Byakuya's way. At least that's what I think.