Board Thread:Versus Debates/@comment-26005711-20160126181655/@comment-27660682-20160320100128

Minato purposely let the raikage get that close is what you are not understanding. The point was to flicker the kunai near the raikage's body once he got close so he could easily teleport back and counter attack. The speed wasn't the moral of the story its why blitzing isn't killing any high level shinobi right off the back. Killer bee was able to tag his brother in the fight to kill naruto too despite being the slower of the two. Itachi is slower than the third raikage, however like i said, blitzing speed =/= striking speed. Substitution, crow substitution, shadow clone, susanoo are options for itachi.

Look, if the third raikage blitzes top speed into an explosion, it doesn't matter that it won't damage him, he is getting disoriented. The emphasis is on the sonic speed, he isn't gonna notice the great explosion detonating, it will be sudden, and even if he opted to keep running, he is still temporarily blinded by the smoke and debris, he has lost sight of itachi, he needs to stop and regain his bearings, meanwhile,  itachi has the better position,  his sharingan can help in taggimg the raikage's position. The rasenshuriken example even shows that the third raikage waa unable to do anything once he was trapped within the sphere and then was left on the ground for several seconds. And whyy exactly is the madara scenario any different when itachi is also a skilled susanoo user? The raikage wasn't blitzing around madara like an idiot because he knows that achieves nothing and his speed doesn't help him other than for dodging attacks because he is a close range fighter. Like I said, blitising speed =/= striking speed. Even against sasuke, once the raikage closed in he slowed down to begin his chop giving sasuke the chance to react, and sasuke was using a very premature version of susanoo,  he couldn't use limbs. I dont see what madara being stronger has to do with anything, susnaoo is susanoo at the end of the day, only difference was that madara was using legs,  but they still have the swords and yasska matagama. Itachi has genjustu: Ms as well as tsyukyomi,  and as well as ephemeral and his demoinc illusions which don't even require eye contact, so he brings even mmore genjustu press ure than madara does. As much as the raikage showed impressive dodging feats, naruto used his chakra arms to carefully land his attack, andnthe raikage even saw them coming. With itachi, he won't see them coming as well because itachi is even smarter than naruto. Kakashi is still very intelligent, he is smarter thannthe raikage as well and still barely outmaneuvered the sneak attacks, and the raikage being " too fast" cop out has already been refuted. Once raikage is in close range he is still vulnerable to the attack overlays. His speed will help, but one mistake on his part causes him to get hit with A  GG jutsu And even in the smoke screen example, once in the smoke another crow bunshin feint can be created that can make an attempt to attack, the raikage will counter but itachi has shown he can use thst feint with the crows flocking  to initiate tsyukyomi,  sothat' s another possibility I don't see how the ova isn't relevant, because it confirmed the canon state ments that kisame wasinferior to itachi and is the same hypothetical battle thing we are doing here. And nothing in it was really unrealistic. So like I said, the raikage's armor isnt a problem in this match up, it's only the speed and stamina. But based on all the screen time ive seen from the raikage s, the effectivnes of their speed has never made any battle one sided bar the sasuke one, and the stamina dominace is the problem itachi lacks against every opponent, do like I said nothing new.