Summary: Mihawk is the stronger pure swordsman. He has the title, the permanent Black Blade, superior blade skill, and the narrative support that comes with them. Zoro’s recent CoC applications being framed as sword skills further supports that CoC-coded techniques belong in the swordsmanship domain for pure swordsmen. Those points stand. Shanks, however, is not defined solely by pure swordsmanship. Like Law with his Devil Fruit and King with his flames, his most distinctive tools are applications of a different power system in his case, extreme and creative Haki, for which the sword often serves as a medium rather than the source of power. The series has already shown that “uses a sword” and “pure swordsman” are not the same thing. Until we see the full extent of what top-tier Haki can do, the cleanest reading remains that Shanks is a Haki specialist of the highest order who happens to fight with a sword, not a pure swordsman whose ceiling is defined by the World’s Strongest Swordsman title. Both characters can be exceptional in their respective domains without one fully encompassing the other. I hope I’ve managed to clearly articulate my perspective and that of many other Shanks fans, as these serve as strong counterarguments to the claims centered on "swordsmanship skills" and the title of "World’s Strongest Swordsman." While I doubt that Vista is stronger than Law, it is entirely plausible that Law could defeat himeven if Vista possesses superior swordsmanship skills and is, technically, the "stronger" swordsman. The same applies to Shanks; we still don’t know what his "all-out" combat style looks like. Oda clearly intends for us to see how Shanks actually fights. The example of King is the ultimate argument demonstrating that someone who carries a sword and even executes their final attack using that sword is not necessarily a "swordsman." His "Imperial Wings" technique is not a swordsmanship skill; rather, the sword serves merely as a conduit to focus his flames before unleashing them all at once. In this same vein, Shanks likely treats his sword as a secondary tool, using it to facilitate his primary combat abilities, much like Law or King. A reason why Oda could bodly said that Mihawk is the stronger swordman without exactly having Mihawk over Shanks. Shanks will end up stronger, with the better feats... End :)