User blog comment:Lucy Heartifilia/Battle Of The Ace's/@comment-5268982-20120712092345/@comment-92.21.193.85-20120713150749

Anime or not, Hades did not say that Laxus was at Gildarts' level. What he said was "To think that Fairy Tail had someone other than Gildarts at THIS level." It didn't mean that he was at Gildarts' level, but that Laxus' strength was on a certain level that he thought only Gildarts had reached.

And again If you notice when Jura attacked the MPF machine during the grand magic games, Makarov mentioned that he would be a match for Gildarts. That's after 7 years of inactivity and Makarov still sees Gildarts as a match for a 10 wizard saints member. whereas he didn't even mention laxus at all. That speaks volumes about his power level.

I vote for Gildarts. Laxus will put up a fight but he will lose.