Since Franky's pretty slow, I'd say Gajeel's faster, but Franky can handle foes a bit faster than him in any case.
Gajeel cannot take a Franky beam. General Franky is probably just too tough too. So he definitely wins.
Not sure how strong post-skip, non-general Franky is, but I'd think Gajeel would likely win that too.
Hm, though if Gajeel had Iron Shadow Mode, he'd be a lot more dangerous.
Gajeel can eat metal, but that doesn't mean a metal foe cannot punch him and hurt him and resist his attacks and all that.
Remember the dragon bot in the Edoras story- it was much too powerful for any one dragon slayer, even though it was metal.
The eating of metal is not going to be the primary decider.
Originally posted by Luffygear4
Now that i think about it, i feel like in this kind of fight pre skip franky would fair a better chance because post hasnt shown anything like "franky boxing" just the beam. If anything that would lose it for him.
He also added things like missiles with gigantic explosions.
Coud de vent was able to blow through several feet of solid metal preskip and we know his power supply has more than tripled since then, a full power burst should finish off Gajeel.