The Dragon Ball Z series has had its fair share of epic battles over its 291 episodes. But few have been more iconic than the battle between Goku and Frieza on planet Namek. The Saiyan from Earth has found himself a distant planet to help his friends find some Dragon Balls, and ended up squaring off against the most powerful being in the Universe wanted to use the balls to wish for immortality.
As the saga unfolded, Goku fulfilled a prophecy of becoming a Super Saiyan and reached his true potential, and Frieza was (for the first time) forced to utilize 100% of his power. This all resulted in a jaw-clenching battle that got so heated, it actually caused the destruction of planet Namek. While we all may remember the highlights of this epic showdown, we thought we’d look at this fight a little closer and analyze how it all unfolded.
Tale of the Tape
In the Orange Corner, the challenger, Goku, aka Kakarot. Standing in at 5’9” and weighing 137 pounds, he’s one of the last few remaining individuals to represent the Saiyan race. Despite this, there is quite a lot we know about the Saiyans — and our challenger has more than his share of reasons to step into the ring with Lord Frieza.
For starters, his race has been heavily ‘recruited’ for years to aid the Frieza Force in their domination to take over the entire Universe. The Saiyans are a warrior race that love nothing more than to battle and it’s widely known that their power levels increase greatly after recovering from being beaten near death (a tactic that Vegeta tried to exploit in an attempt to defeat Frieza).
In the White Corner we have the evil overload, Frieza! Towering at 5’2”, his weight has proven to be a mystery to this day. Not only do we not know how much he weighs, but his home planet is also shrouded in mystery. Representing a race only known as the Frieza Race, the only thing that we do know for a fact is that this fearsome warrior is regarded as one of the most powerful beings in the Universe!
But as we all know, power levels, size and weight aren’t the only defining factors in who wins a battle in the DBZ world. On paper it looks like Goku has this one in the bag, he has the power of youth, height and potentially a weight advantage. Even his Saiyan DNA would appear to work in his favor.
On the flip side though Frieza has potentially more experience — and let us not forget who blew up the Saiyans’ home planet, a feat in which Frieza didn’t even seem to break a sweat. With that information at our disposal, things seem even at this point.
Blow for blow
As you’d expect, a fight between two of the Universe’s most powerful entities was always going to be a barn burner — and the numbers back this up.
Over the duration of the battle, there were clearly a lot of strikes thrown on each combatant but when you crunch the numbers, Frieza takes the crown here. Not only was his output a lot higher, but he landed nearly three times as many blows as Goku, on top of this, he managed to get almost twice as many knock downs.
These numbers can be a little misleading though. As we all know, Goku transformed to a Super Saiyan (SSJ) mid battle and although his output was nearly identical in both forms (258 before and 262 after) he was landing significantly more shots and managed to get knocked down a mere 3 times in his SSJ form.
Frieza on the other hand still managed to land 246 shots on SSJ Goku but was outputting twice as many strikes as before (456) but landing less than 50% of those (210). Also, 11 of those 14 knock downs were suffered during this time.
The power of Ki
What’s a DBZ fight without some good old-fashioned Ki-Blasts? And this fight had plenty as the numbers clearly show.
Ki-Blasts clearly take more power to produce than a regular strike, and the numbers illustrate that Frieza’s output and success rate were much higher than Goku’s. Hell, if there was an award for effort alone, old Frieza boy would be getting an A numbers alone, easily takes this one.
You talking to me?!
An overlooked aspect of fighting is the mental game. A one-liner, taunt, or insult that can really get under your opponent’s skin, forcing them to make a mistake or have them exert more energy than necessary, and Goku / Frieza had plenty to say to one another.
It’s important to note though, that although Frieza is very sharp with his tongue, he doesn’t like it when he’s the victim of it. Goku realised this as the fight went on and his output of verbal jibes increased greatly as the fight went on (22 insults in his SSJ form compared to 9).
Conclusion – What was the defining factor?
So, we all know who won, but why? Well, stamina and durability are often key components of victory in any fight, but with both fighters equal footing, there are other ways to force your opponent to play to your advantage. Goku isn’t often celebrated as a cerebral fighter, but we can see that his taunts and game plan to trick Frieza into wasting all his energy was clearly working up to the point where Goku landed the final blow and defeated him.
Goku could clearly take the shots, take the smack talk and keep a level head, because even he knew that at the end of the day, when you’re standing and your opponent isn’t, that’s a win.
