Sarutobi never defeated or even fought any of the Kage in his era otherwise it would have been mentioned by now. We know that the third raikage was only EVER injured once, and that was by his own technique, and then died fighting 10000 iwa shinobi from chakra exhaustion after three days, so the question here becomes, how did peopkle judge Sarutobi to be stronger then this guy, because they clearly havent fought before, or if they did, Hiruzen never injured him since he was only injured by his own tech against the eight tails, so he wouldnt have beaten him. Another thing is the third Mizukage, the third Mizukage was Tobi, and we know for a FACT that they never fought, no one even knew who was the third Mizukage except for Kisame, those OP shinobi that Hiruzen never fought, or at least that it what it looks like if we cross reference the manga info, so how is it that Hiruzen can be considered stronger then these Kages of his era when he never bested them in battle?
There isnt even any evidence that he fought Onoki, in the first war Onoki fought Madara, in the second Konoha fought against Kumo, where the second died against 20 bounty ninjas of Kumo and konoha retreated after that, and then they fought Ame, where the sannin were beaten up by Hanzo, in the third war they fought Iwa, this is where maybe he should have fought Onoki and beaten him, but we all know that Minato was the hero against Iwa and it most likely that he was the one that fought Onoki, otherwise then Hiruzen would have been the hero of that war. The sandaime Kazekage was said to be the strongest Kazekage and was beaten by sasori.
Now that we have cross referenced the I must admit incomplete, but still sufficient information, what did Hiruzen do to earn this status as 'strongest of his era'?
More importantly, why is it that only his admirers have talked about him being the greatest and none of the 'enemy' shinobi or people who have no connections to him?
He was praised by Orochimaru, who was his "FAVORITE" student.
Praised by Iruka, who was his surrogate grand son, lets face it, Iruka was just like Naruto to Hiruzen, he was always there for Iruka as a child and gave him words of wisdom and encouragement. These two opinions can not be taken seriously, they are very subjective because they were the opinions of people with close ties to him.
Its just like when Kakashi said that Naruto was the only one who could surpass the fourth, implyiong that the fourth was above everyone else. But we know Kakshi was his student, we simplky cannot take that opinion ar face value.
Jiraiya also said that everyone pailed in comparison to the fourth, but again, this is his sensei, it is a subjective opinion.
Even kabuto cant be taken seriously, when he was pawning Tsubade, he even BEGGED her to up her performance because she was according to him 'embarrassing' the name of the group that his 'Orochimaru sama' belonged to. In other words, Kabuto was looking for reasons to praise her just because it woukld make Oro look weak for beeing grouped under the same category as the at the time underperforming tsuande. Kabuto's words cant be taken at face value too, because he could have just been, just like with Tsunade, giving praise to Hiruzen on the basis that he was associated with Oro as his sensei.
Yotsuki A fought the fourth and after being at the receiving end of a beating from the fourth, gave a biased opinion claiming the fourth could never be surpassed simply because he pawned him and his brother. Chojurou gave props to Kisame, who is his senpei from the same elite organisation of Kiri, and claimed that Kisame would never fall. Zetsu gave two fellow members of Akatsuki props, claiming Itachi was invincible and that Pein was undefeatable. Naruto said that Kakashi, his own sensei, had a better nose then Kiba, but only a few arcs later during the eight man sasuke persuit, Kiba proved those claims to be complete nonsense and kakshi and his ninken even admitted it.
Naruto also said some obsurd things, claiming that Kakashi was smarter then shikamaru and had better eyes then Sasuke, but Asuma saisd that Shikamaru had the highest IQ he had ever heard of and frequently refered to him as being the smartest guy he knew, and gues what, he knew kakshi too, and Orochimaru, Tobi, and Kabuto have all claimed that Sasuke had even better eys then Itachi, Tobi even noting Sasuke's use of the sharingan as out of this world.
What is the point I was trying to get acrross her, basically I'm trying to give props to Kishi and point out the ignorance of most of the people of Narutobase. Kishi understands the real world perfectly and has adjusted his manga to fit it almnost perfectly, in other words he understands human nature. People in real life are biased, and so why shouldnt the people in his manga be biased, it wouldnt be realistic otherwise. People keep trolling Kishi for contradicting himself but Kishi hasnt really done that, everytime contradicting statements have come up in the manga, they have been from a certain 'CHARACTER'S perspective, not neccessarily the author was saying it.
For example, go to spain and ask the la liga players who is the best soccer player in the spanish league, some will say Ronaldo for sure, others will say messi for sure, who should we believe out of those people? Sure messi won the ballon D'or or whatever, but if you looked at the votes, you would see at least a third of the votes to ronaldo, people arent always of the same oipinion even when they see the same things.
As I said befire, Kishi knows this human trate and has applied it well in his manga, thats why Kabuto was able to say that Hashirama's power was like a myth just like the sage of the six paths, people dont resally look at things in the context of the situation or position of the person. That line didnt translate directly to Hashirama being the strongest ever, Kabuto made comments before that that give a better understanding that statement, forshadow it so to speak. He noted Hashirama's power over the tree world, and then noted his power over the flower world, after that he followed comparing that power to that of the sage as being mythical and said there were no shinobi like him anymore. In other words, Kabuto was comparing the nature of hashirama's power to that of the sage, not that his power was of that level or that he was that strong, just that the things his power could do were sureal, offcourse creating life at all is mythical, much more when it is of that scale, but that does not equal to Hashi is the strongest, just that no one could use that kind of power, after all, a tool is only as strong as its wielder. There are no shinobi with mythical powers like that but that doesnt mean that there are no shinobi strong enough to besat him, creating life is ristricted to Hashirama.
In any case no one has said that Hiruzen is the strongest, Oro, Kabuto, and Iruka noted that 'IT WAS SAID' that he is strongest, they didnt outright say, 'HE IS THE STRONGEST', nevertheless I could be wrong about everything ZI said, I'm not arrrogant enough to make my words out to be absolute fact, just an analysis of what I think Kishi was tryna do with all these contradicting statements.
