The conflict between Goku and Frieza has raged for decades within the Dragon Ball universe with their first fight being on Planet Namek and their most recent one taking place within the very latest chapter of Dragon Ball Super. No matter how many villains Goku faces throughout his career, Frieza will always be special–not only because he keeps coming back, but because he actually (unwittingly) turned Goku’s trademark attack against him during their very first fight.
Upon Frieza’s introduction, it was immediately clear that he was a villain who operated at a higher level of power than anyone before him. As the series progressed, long after Frieza’s first defeat by the hands of Goku, Frieza was completely left in the dust in terms of power level. To put it in perspective, Frieza was killed by Trunks in a matter of seconds–the same Trunks who didn’t stand a chance against Androids 17 and 18 at that time, let alone Cell; and that’s not even considering Buu. Basically, Frieza’s strength became nothing special almost immediately following his death, but his return in Dragon Ball Super changed all of that. Not only did Frieza reach the level of Golden Frieza upon his resurrection, but he even surpassed that power with Black Frieza in Dragon Ball Super’s latest chapter. While Frieza more than proved he is still a relevant villain capable of rivaling the strength of literal gods, nothing will beat the time he used Goku’s deadliest move against him completely by accident.
In Dragon Ball chapter 314 by Akira Toriyama, Frieza and Goku are in the middle of their iconic battle on Planet Namek, and in this chapter, Goku is losing pretty badly. Even after using the Kaio-Ken x10 technique, Goku still couldn’t match even half of Frieza’s full power. So, in a last-ditch effort to kill the villain, Goku puts his remaining energy into one Kamehameha blast and fires it directly at Frieza. While Frieza thinks he can simply block the attack, he quickly learns that it was far more powerful than he gave it credit for. Much to his surprise, Goku’s blast actually hurt Frieza, and he responded with what can only be described as a fit of unadulterated rage. Frieza launches himself towards Goku at full speed and rams Goku with the top of his head–an attack that nearly finishes Goku off for good.
Shooting towards someone head first and then ramming them so hard that they are defeated, or nearly so, is literally Goku’s original go-to move anytime he faced a powerful threat. When Goku went up against Red Ribbon Army’s General Black, he shot through the villain’s robotic mech-suit head-first and killed him right then and there. Similarly, Goku also threw himself head-first through King Piccolo’s torso, resulting in his death as well. Now, in this chapter, Frieza uses that very same move against Goku, and he does so to perfection.
While Frieza isn’t able to kill Goku by ramming him with his head as Goku had done many times in the past, that attack is perhaps the most devastating in their fight up until that point. Goku goes down hard after Frieza uses his head as a literal weapon against the Saiyan–proving that Frieza inherently perfected Goku’s original trademark Dragon Ball attack without even meaning to.
