While the Super Saiyan form is one of the strongest transformations in Dragon Ball because each of its stages are more powerful than the last, there is one villain who–while physically weaker than a Super Saiyan–could easily beat one in a matter of seconds.
The Super Saiyan form made its first appearance in Dragon Ball Chapter 317 by Akira Toriyama. In the chapter, Goku unlocks the mythic transformation after Frieza kills his longtime friend and ally, Krillin, right in front of him. The raw emotions Goku felt in that moment pushed him over the edge of his preconceived power limit and he became a Super Saiyan which granted him the power to defeat Frieza and keep the intergalactic tyrant from obtaining the Dragon Balls. After Super Saiyan was unlocked, Goku quickly went to work on training harder to break that power ceiling, leading to the Saiyan achieving Super Saiyan 2, followed by the even more powerful Super Saiyan 3. Within the current continuity of Dragon Ball Super, Goku was able to greatly surpass the original three Super Saiyan forms with Super Saiyan God, a transformation that led to the even stronger Super Saiyan Blue–a form that has momentarily capped a Super Saiyan’s strength.
In Dragon Ball Chapter 77 by Akira Toriyama, a villain with the Red Ribbon Army known as General Blue is chasing Bulma, Krillin, and Goku as the team of child adventurers are tracking down the Dragon Balls, and Blue wants to get his hands on them first. General Blue, while an imposing fellow, isn’t that strong in terms of raw power. He is incredibly strong for a normal human, but when compared with the likes of Goku (and even Krillin), Blue isn’t able to hold his own in hand-to-hand combat. However, General Blue has a secret ability that he reveals in this chapter, one that would give him an edge over even a Super Saiyan: the power to paralyze his victims.
If General Blue’s opponent looks him in the eye, they become paralyzed. Unless he releases them or his focus is disrupted by an outside force, Blue’s opponents remain frozen in place no matter how strong they are. The parameters of General Blue’s power as described in these early Dragon Ball chapters indicate that even if he was going up against a Super Saiyan, Blue would just need to make eye contact with them and the fight would be over before it even began.
Unfortunately, General Blue was killed in a later Dragon Ball chapter and never got the chance to test his impressive ability on an actual Super Saiyan. However, he was able to paralyze Goku on a number of occasions without breaking a sweat, so it stands to reason his power would hold up against a Super Saiyan as it doesn’t seem to rely on sheer strength but is almost like a hypnotic spell that isn’t based on raw power. That being said, it is unlikely that General Blue of the Red Ribbon Army could match a Super Saiyan Blue, let alone take them down, with a mere glance, though it doesn’t seem impossible that he could defeat the first Super Saiyan form with his paralyzing power–proving that Dragon Ball’s weakest villain could perhaps actually beat a Super Saiyan.
