User blog comment:Salubri/Hollow. Arrancar, Espada & Vasto Lorde/@comment-1393830-20100818012903

With Nnoitra, I have had this thing floating around in my head, it may only make sense to me though. He said the Espada were much stronger now than when Nel was an Espada. He was number 8 back then and 5 in the stronger Espada. To me, this says he is not a vasto lorde because if he was a vasto and was only number 8 their must have been some extremely powerful vastos ahead of him and so it makes no sense that the current espada are stronger. My guess is Nnoitra was an adjuchas and was number 8 in the previous Espada before gaining a large amount of power and becoming number 5. Again, this may only make sense to me, I don't know