User blog comment:FairyRaven/Fairy Tail Chapter 363: The Stories That Demons Read, Review and Commentary/@comment-1153699-20131207173113/@comment-4829046-20131209115443

If Acnologia were serious, he would have blown up the entire continent Gildarts was on.

Also saying ANYTHING in regards to Makarov's strength in comparison to the other two is pure speculation so don't use absolute phrases like "beat Gildarts and Laxus with a single sneeze". We will not know for sure, and with how Mashima has completely thrown power-scaling out the window, we never will. So let the ones who believe that Makarov is weaker than Gildarts and Laxus to believe that, and you can believe that Makarov is the strongest. In the end it doesn't really matter since like I said, Mashima broke his own rules.