well it was kind of implied he was the "most experienced" among the three because he spent years and years of training because he wanted to bring down Orochimaru.. but as stated before their like rock paper and scissors, tsunade is the one who can beat jiraya by strength, jiraya had the power to kill orochimaru if he ever found him, and orochimaru can kill tsunade by using tactics, being tsunade is a terrible technician. but i believe jiraya is the strongest being exactly as you said almost brought down a rinnegan user. and to add onto that nagato already knew almost all of jiraya's powers... Orochimaru may be said immortal, but jiraya couldhave easily taken him down using sage mode...I think Jiraiya is the strongest of the three, Orochimaru is nigh-immortal, genius and all that but Jiraiya is experienced as hell in his abilities and they were enough to get close to taking out a Rinnegan-user without intel...
Jiraiya know weird seals and stuff too, it'd help him in putting down Orochimaru...well it was kind of implied he was the "most experienced" among the three because he spent years and years of training because he wanted to bring down Orochimaru.. but as stated before their like rock paper and scissors, tsunade is the one who can beat jiraya by strength, jiraya had the power to kill orochimaru if he ever found him, and orochimaru can kill tsunade by using tactics, being tsunade is a terrible technician. but i believe jiraya is the strongest being exactly as you said almost brought down a rinnegan user. and to add onto that nagato already knew almost all of jiraya's powers... Orochimaru may be said immortal, but jiraya couldhave easily taken him down using sage mode...
Hiruzen didn't imply anything other than Orochimaru was the smartest of the 3. Everything else was an opinion formulated by readers.It was implied by Hiruzen(teacher) that he was the best. Throughtout the series Jiraiya looked the strongest but you have to remember Hiruzen took away his jutsu in part 1
That formulated opinion has alot of evidence to support it.Hiruzen didn't imply anything other than Orochimaru was the smartest of the 3. Everything else was an opinion formulated by readers.
what evidence? Forbidden jutsu and lab experiments that had next to 0 purpose in an actual fight?That formulated opinion has alot of evidence to support it.