Lucci kind of reminds me of Dragon Ball Super Freeza. He has a lot of natural talent and potential, so it actually makes sense to me that him training his body even more over two years is enough to keep him at the level of being a serious threat. I would imagine CP0 is constantly sent on dangerous missions - they even pushed Blackbeard to pull back from Baltigo. They do things like deal with Kaido and spy on Big Mom for the Tea Party. So it makes a lot of sense to me that he's run into missions where he was pushed to his limits and grew, similar to Luffy. He is pretty much a master of Rokushiki, and now has haki, as well as awakening. This means he's able to tank blows with Tekkai, moon-walk with Geppou, use his claws as weapons with Shigan, and Soru for moving extremely fast (which would be further boosted by being a leapord).
I don't really think it's that crazy that someone who was able to get up after going a round with G5 Luffy is able to match Zoro in combat. It's kind of ridiculous how everyone seems to think that indicates Zoro is weak or something. He's the dude who trained with Hawkeyes for two years, and put a scar on Kaido similar to Oden. A lot of his time in the New World has been nothing but him blowing through combatants (even Pica was basically a no-diff win for Zoro).
My biggest annoying with Lucci isn't that he's pushing Zoro, but more that he seems irredeemable. The cover story of CP9 gave them some semblance of hope that they may become good people, but instead, Oda decided to have them join CP0 and reeeeeeaaally lean into being evil fucks who would do things like let Charlos enslave Shirahoshi, or hold Vivi hostage.
