Summary

  • Vegeta and Goku have a complicated history of battling each other, with no definitive answer on who is stronger.
  • In Dragon Ball Z, Majin Vegeta defeated Goku after Goku let his guard down, delivering a finishing strike.
  • In Dragon Ball Super, an evil Goku named Goku Black defeated Vegeta, creating a narrative symmetry between the two evil versions of each Saiyan warrior.

While the two have battled on numerous occasions throughout the course of the Dragon Ball series, Vegeta only managed to technically defeat Goku one time–a victory that was completely flipped by Dragon Ball Super. The two powerful Saiyans' history of fighting is complicated, with their battles often coming to conclusions that don't definitively settle which is the strongest. One battle in Dragon Ball Super though saw an alternate evil Goku deliver an absolute beatdown against the Prince of Saiyans.

In Dragon Ball Z, when Vegeta was corrupted by the magic of Babidi and became Majin Vegeta, his inner rage and frustrations were turned against him as they became his metaphorical chains, linking him to Babidi’s control. As Majin Vegeta, the corrupted Saiyan committed a number of atrocities including obliterating hundreds of people at the World Martial Arts Tournament stadium. In response to Vegeta’s villainy, Goku launched an attack against him, resulting in the pair facing off in a bout of epically iconic Super Saiyan violence. Their fight was fairly evenly matched, with both delivering devastating blows against the other. In the end, however, Majin Vegeta claimed victory after Goku let his guard down, allowing the corrupt Saiyan to deliver a finishing strike.

Dragon Ball Super Makes a Good Vegeta Fight An Evil Goku

dragon ball goku vs vegeta

In Dragon Ball Super Chapter 20 by Akira Toriyama and Toyotarou, Vegeta and Goku traveled to Future Trunks’ alternate world, where the villainous Zamasu and Goku Black (who was another Zamasu possessing the body of an alternate Goku) decimated the planet and meant to do the same to the entire multiverse. To save Trunks’ world and preserve all others, Vegeta and Goku had to stop these monsters then and there, though that would prove more difficult than the Saiyans originally thought. Due to an incessant need to prove himself superior to Goku in whatever form Kakarot takes, Vegeta opts to fight Goku Black while the real Goku fights Zamasu. Unfortunately, though Vegeta puts up a good fight at first, but this evil version of Goku ends up soundly defeating him.

Just as Zamasu took over Goku’s body to become Goku Black, Vegeta was overtaken by the dark magic of Babidi and was effectively corrupted, changing him into Majin Vegeta. To make the situations even more similar, both twisted versions of each Saiyan warrior won their respective battles. Majin Vegeta defeated Goku, and in nearly identical fashion, Goku Black defeated Vegeta–thereby creating a narrative symmetry that is too perfect to be ignored. While different, both Goku Black and Majin Vegeta represented each character at their most villainous, with the main difference being the fact that there wasn’t a trace of Goku within Goku Black after Zamasu switched bodies with him, whereas Majin Vegeta was simply a corrupted version of the Saiyan Prince who was fueled by the original’s rage and envy.

The True Winner Between Vegeta & Goku is Still Undecided

Vegeta will always be cooler than Goku.

Few fights in Dragon Ball will draw attention like a fight between Vegeta and Goku, and it's happened many times aside from this. Vegeta and Goku's first bout took place when they met and ended with Vegeta turning into the Great Ape form and dealing massive damage to Goku. Goku also fought a duplicate of Vegeta in the Super anime, which he defeated soundly. Goku was also able to defeat a version of Vegeta possessed by the villain Baby in GT, somewhat similar to his Majin form. Lastly, Goku and Vegeta fought a sparring match in the movie Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, which Vegeta ultimately won, much to his delight.

Though the circumstances of the two evil Saiyans’ existences aren’t perfectly aligned, the visual parallels are striking and the outcomes are exactly the same, as Vegeta’s one victory over Goku was completely flipped by Dragon Ball Super.