Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-25516007-20141008201906/@comment-25152698-20141103140832

ItachiWasAHero wrote: those are base stats too btw.. Itachi's 35.5 was his deathly sick base stats, now think about that

Itachi without a doubt, is often underestimated, only because of the substantial power boosts given to naruto and sasuke. Itachi held hid own against naruto in a taijutsu only fight while the latter was in his nine tailed chakra mode, and whose to forget his susanoo? While it was not perfectly stabilized... it was still mentioned to be virtually unstoppable, and this was stated by black zetsu, who presumably would have seen the likes of Indra's Susanoo. That being said, Itachi's tsukuyomi gives him the edge over just about anybody. A genjutsu that can only be repelled by blood relatives? No disrespect, but how would Hashirama get out of that if caught? (Just from a genjutsu perspective)

I'm not arguing Itachi is superior to madara of hashirama, that would just be silly. But this is a game of match ups, it doesn't matter whose stronger, that doesn't guarantee the win.