@ouroborik: This actually came to mind last night. I was rethinking to myself about how Fire Rodan would fair against each of the Legendary monsters.
Admittedly I haven't watched the film in years, but from what I remember Fire Rodan did not fair well against his opponents.
He would land some good shots, such as hitting Godzilla in the midsection, knocking him over and upside his head to send him tumbling into a mountainside, or springing back to life to damage MechaG's face, particularly the eye (Canon).
That being said he didn't appear to have great durability. Nearly every time Godzilla or MechaG would hit him, it was devastating. He would be in a lot of pain. Like when Godzilla caught him with repeated strikes from his tail, while buried. He then Stone Cold mudhole stomped him and blasted him into a coma that lasted a few days. He didn't fair any better against MechaG. He tried using range but as soon as he was blasted by Mecha he got knocked out the sky and buried under a skyscraper. After the surprise attack, he is nearly killed by another plasma shot. (Glass)
I will say this, these are Top Tier opponents he is facing. Both Heisei and Legendary Rodan, to me are glass canons as they can dish out some punishment, but could not take a whole lot. Legendary Rodan appeared to be the more viscous fighter, but Fire Rodan is more versatile.
Your recall of his fight is pretty accurate, but you are low-selling his performance, especially in comparison to other kaiju.
Yes, Rodan did get KO'ed after a few blasts and physical strikes from Godzilla, but the amount of attacks he survived is already as much as any other Heisei monster save for Larva Battra managed to take before going down (prior to the final three "teambusters" Mechagodzilla, Spacegodzilla and Destoroyah).
Biollante could only take a couple of atomic blasts in her first form and an handful in her final form before being defeated. Ghidorah took about the same damage as Base Rodan before dying (both standard and Mecha form). Battra and Mothra in their imago forms were both in extreme danger after just a couple of attacks from Godzilla managing to land. That's just how the Heisei series worked, Godzilla's atomic breath could actually do damage whenever it hit, it wasn't just for show.
Rodan managed to fight Godzilla for a few minutes, bring him down twice, cause him visible pain several times and tank a few attacks in the process. The fact that Rodan was still fighting without visible injuries and getting attacks in after being hit a couple of times by Godzilla's atomic breath is enough for me to consider him a decently durable monster.
It's the same as a character fighting Superman and taking an handful of punches and a couple of heat-vision blasts before going down; yes, Superman is clearly superior by the end of the fight, but the opponent who took several of his attacks and kept fighting can officially be considered to have a pretty good level of superhuman durability.
Losing to Heisei Godzilla, and especially Mechagodzilla, is no shame. Rodan still did MUCH better against them than either Rodan or Mothra did in their fights in King of the Monsters.
Legendary Rodan's best feat in KotM was creating the destructive winds and destroying the fighter jets.
Fire Rodan created similar winds and destroyed several big man-made strucutres while looking for Baby Godzilla, and even used those winds in his base form while fighting Godzilla. He also showed comparable maneuverability when he released Baby's container from an helicopter in midair and when he outperformed and took down the Garuda before fighting Mechagodzilla.
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