Board Thread:Versus Debates/@comment-26998824-20150920161424/@comment-26773508-20150921030219

Pointless VS thread. Prime Hiruzen has no feats. His hype was clearly retconned in Part 2. In contrast EMS Madara has both hype and feats. EMS Madara's hype was so high the five Kage went to war based on the threats of an imposter. And it has been repeatedly stated, over and over again, that Hashirama was the only one who could beat Madara. Even Edo Dan said that, and he knew how powerful Hiruzen was. Of course, he was only a little kid when Hashi died. But Dan was of that generation of Konoha nins who were born at a time when the memory of Madara was still fresh, and who also witnessed Hiruzen at his prime. Dan didn't even bother to speculate that the Third Hokage was a competition for Madara. And everyone in Shippuden says the same thing: only Hashi could beat Madara.

Further proof comes from Kabuto during the War. Kabuto himself stated that Hashirama and Madara were so powerful that eventually the present generation thought their powers to be nothing more than myths and legends. Hiruzen was alive just 3 years before Kabuto made this statement. So had Prime Hiruzen really been Madara's equal, shinobis of the present generation would not have relegated Hashi and Madara's powers to the realm of myths.

TL;DR: Prime Hiruzen is all hype, which ended up being retconned. At best, he's slightly above Tobirama. No way can Hiruzen beat EMS Madara. Maybe he can beat MS Madara, but EMS Madara slaughters Hiruzen.