User blog comment:IamJakuhoRaikoben/Chapter 447: Escape Battle, Review./@comment-26451407-20150805081453/@comment-1153699-20150805210440

FairyRaven -> And I'd say he has confidence in Cana's abilities and he knows she can look after herself. If he thought she was a weakling who needs protection, he wouldn't have left FT to travel in the first place.

NoNick -> 1) He was in shock because he saw how strong Jura was. He said Jura was so strong he could give even Gildarts a match. I'd say Makarov at least had an estimate of where Gildarts was at power wise.

2) Why would Hiro make Makarov say that if it wasn't true?

3) That's because he didn't know they trained. Especially not as hard as they did.

4) Before Gildarts used Crash Magic, Bluenote was going blow for blow with him. Natsu (without full PoF) oneshotted the guy as if he was some average fodder. The gap between Bluenote and Current Natsu is (a lot) bigger than the gap between GMG Rogue and GMG Natsu. And that's saying a lot.

Even if Gildarts is on Base Natsu's lvl (which I doubt), there's still Laxus. The guy cancelled Azir's Sand Tsunami like it was nothing and unleashed a nuke that is waaay above the clouds in height by just raising his hand. The scary thing is though, that that nuke was an unnamed attack. Meaning that nuke was so casual he didn't even bother to name it.

For Gildarts to still be above Laxus, he would have to train just as hard as he did for a full year. Which I just don't see happening. Until Gildarts proves himself, I consider Laxus to be way above Gildarts personally. :/