Quote Originally Posted by Abdula
He seems pretty quick on his feet but I haven't seen anything yet that would suggest that he is as fast as Sasuke. Even if he is just as fast as Sasuke it doesn't explain how is able to beat Sasuke with his sharingan on. This is the same Sasuke who just a few chapters ago was able to not only follow but keep up with the movements of Itachi who imo, other than the fourth, is the faster character we've seen thus far.

Thats what doesn't make sense to me, it seems as if Sasuke was just playing around before feeling his opponent out and he wasn't even using the sharingan but now he is, so I don't get it. The other thing is, if this guy is that strong now, without transforming or using any of his bijuu abilities, how is Kishi going to explain Hawk defeating him later? I also want to know why Sasuke is using Naruto's battle tactics, I mean since when does he go around charging at his opponents.
Sasuke's always charged in at his opponents, it's just that the results looked more aesthetically pleasing than when Naruto did it, along with the fact that Sasuke was usually able to land some blows, while Naruto would get some clones knocked to all hell.

Naruto's battle tactic of kage bunshin running in and charging is brilliant, even if repetitive. Sacrifice the kage bunshin, and hopefully learn a bit about the opponent in the process. Sasuke using it, but substituting his teammates for kage bunshin ( yeah xD ) is also brilliant. He learned from that, that the guy was a rather formidable close combat So he goes "well, I've got the close combat hax!" and goes in. But remember what Rock Lee said to Sasuke when they first fought? "It doesn't matter if you can see the attacks if your body can't respond to them." I think that's what happened here. Mr. Raptastic hadn't even begun to show his skill. He probably combined amazing speed (maybe or maybe not faster than Sasuke) with numerous simultaneous attacks. As a whole, Sasuke just couldn't avoid that without first knowing the guy was capable of it.

As far as them ending up beating the 8 tails...easy. Teamwork. They've already shown that they can use it to some degree of effectiveness, and Sasuke himself defeated Deidara, who took out a bijuu, unprepared at that. I don't see this being a big deal.