While Frieza is the arch rival of both Goku and Vegeta (though for entirely separate and virtually unrelated reasons), one Dragon Ball Z chapter proves that the Saiyan heroes were secretly corrupted by Frieza’s evil influence.
Frieza was introduced during the Dragon Ball Z era of the series as an intergalactic dictator who used the Saiyan race as his own personal space-faring warriors, traveling from planet to planet, wiping out indigenous life and then selling the vacant worlds to the highest bidder. When Goku was just a baby on his way to Earth in a space-traveling pod, Frieza decided that the threat of the Saiyans wasn’t worth their usefulness in his army, so Frieza destroyed Planet Vegeta and effectively wiped out practically the entire Saiyan race. Vegeta–who was one of the surviving Saiyans and the greatest warrior in Frieza’s army–eventually learned the truth of what happened to his people and his home and worked effortlessly to kill Frieza and prove to him that Saiyans couldn’t be killed so easily. While Frieza killed Vegeta before the Saiyan prince could exact his vengeance on behalf of his people, Goku successfully defeated Frieza after the villain killed his best friend, Krillin, right in front of him. That murderous act pushed Goku to become a Super Saiyan while simultaneously cementing Frieza as his arch enemy as well.
In Dragon Ball chapter 505 by Akira Toriyama, Goku and Vegeta have used the Potara Earrings to fuse and become Vegito in order to be strong enough to kill Majin Buu. However, in true ‘prideful Saiyan’ fashion, Vegito didn’t shoot to kill immediately–he wanted to showboat a bit and really rub his superior strength in Buu’s face. In that effort, Vegito does something to Buu that Frieza did to Goku so many years before: Vegito fights Buu without using his hands.
Vegeta & Goku Learned a Villainous Fighting Style from Frieza
Way back in Dragon Ball chapter 311, Frieza is so sure of his superior strength over Goku that he tells the Saiyan he won’t use his hands, and he’ll still beat him. Frieza overstated his power in that chapter, and he paid the price for his arrogance–just like Vegito. While Goku and Vegeta thought their transformation into Vegito would be permanent, they actually did have a time limit, so their time spent messing around trying to prove that they were so much stronger than Buu by not using their hands totally backfired. In this way, Vegeta and Goku were exactly like the villain they hated so much–and it was nearly their downfall.
While it is unlikely Goku and Vegeta were deliberately imitating Frieza, the fact is, they were whether they meant to or not. Vegito showed unheroic arrogance in his fight with Buu in a manner that perfectly reflected Frieza’s villainy–proving that Dragon Ball Z’s greatest heroes, Goku and Vegeta, were secretly corrupted by one of the darkest villains in the series, Frieza.
