Kind of on a side topic, I think the thing that makes Crocodile my favorite fight compared to just about every other fight in the series is because the stakes were so well established. The war had already begun, and even though the strawhats had taken care of the rest of baroque works, it didn't matter because crocodile had a contingency plan for nearly everything.
Since then, all of the stakes leading up to luffy's fight with the antagonist have mostly been that the antagonist is holding everyone hostage with some kind of massive attack. Their plans are largely foiled by that point, so it's just a desperate move to silence witnesses.
With Skypiea, Enel's desire to go to the moon is largely non-threatening, the only reason he needs to be defeated is because his attacks are destroying all of the land. In Enies Lobby, The strawhats have already taken back Robin and the buster call is taking care of a lot of other things, it's really just escaping at that point. Hody: See Noah. Same with Doflamingo, his plans are largely foiled, he's just cleaning up the mess at this point.
The only one that kind of matched the feeling was Thriller Bark, since they absolutely had to defeat Moriah before the sun came up.
It's an incredibly slight difference in terms of set up, but it makes a big difference to me in terms of thematic resonance. By shifting the point of foiling a plan to the exact point of luffy defeating the enemy, it just feels so cathartic. I still like the fights that followed, it's just that I prefer Crocodile for this reason.
