One panel. That's all it took.
In Dragon Ball Super Chapter 87, Black Frieza descended onto Planet Cereal and knocked out Ultra Instinct Goku and Ultra Ego Vegeta with a single strike — at the same time. Then, almost as an afterthought, he punched a hole through Gas, the so-called "strongest warrior in the universe," and vaporized him into a skeleton.
The message was clear: the galactic tyrant is back, and this time, nobody in the mortal realm comes close.
With the Dragon Ball Super manga on hiatus, Black Frieza remains the confirmed final boss waiting at the end of the road. But if there's one thing the franchise has taught us over 40 years, it's that no villain stays on top forever. Someone will beat Black Frieza — the only question is who.
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So let's rank the five characters with a genuine shot at taking him down. Not just by raw power scaling, but by something Dragon Ball cares about even more: narrative destiny.
How Strong Is Black Frieza Really?
Before we rank his challengers, let's be honest about what they're up against.
After his humiliating defeat in the Tournament of Power era, Frieza did something he had never done in his entire life: he trained. Seriously. He found a Hyperbolic Time Chamber on a remote planet and spent 10 years inside it (roughly 10 days in real time), emerging with a jet-black evolution beyond Golden Frieza.
Here's Black Frieza's resume so far:
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- One-shot Ultra Instinct Goku and Ultra Ego Vegeta simultaneously — not a drawn-out fight, a single casual blow
- Instantly vaporized Gas, who had just been wished into becoming the strongest warrior in Universe 7
- Showed zero strain — no heavy breathing, no power-up sequence, no effort
- Possibly rivals the Gods of Destruction — a line even Goku and Vegeta haven't crossed
The scariest part? Frieza is a prodigy who never needed training to begin with. His base potential always dwarfed the Saiyans'. Now that he's actually put in the work, the gap looks unbridgeable.
But it isn't. Here's who closes it.
#5 — Broly: The Wildcard Nobody Can Measure
Why He Has a Chance
Broly is the single biggest unknown variable in Dragon Ball Super. In the Broly film, his Legendary Super Saiyan rampage forced Goku and Vegeta to fuse into Gogeta just to survive — and before that, he spent an extended sequence beating a helpless Golden Frieza into the ground like a stress toy.
The implication has always been that Broly's raw ceiling is higher than Goku's or Vegeta's. He simply can't access it on command. His power is tied to rage, and rage is not a battle plan.
If Broly ever gains full control of his Legendary form — something his training on Beerus' planet is slowly building toward — even Black Frieza would have a genuine fight on his hands.
Why He Probably Won't Be the One
Two problems. First, control is exactly what Broly lacks, and an uncontrolled Broly is as dangerous to his allies as to Frieza. Second, narratively, Broly has been repositioned as a gentle giant and ally — not a closer. Toyotaro seems to be saving him as raid-boss support, not the finisher.
Verdict: Massive ceiling, wrong story role.
#4 — Jiren: The Forgotten Monster
Why He Has a Chance
Cast your mind back to the Tournament of Power. Jiren stood at the absolute peak of mortal strength — a warrior said to exceed his own universe's God of Destruction. It took Mastered Ultra Instinct Goku, and eventually a team effort, just to push him off the stage.
That was years ago in-universe. Jiren has been training ever since, and his entire character is built on the philosophy that strength is everything. If anyone outside Universe 7 has silently kept pace with the Frieza problem, it's him.
The Problem
Jiren lives in Universe 11 and has no connection to Frieza whatsoever. Dragon Ball rarely hands its biggest kills to characters with zero emotional stake — and Frieza's story is soaked in Saiyan blood, not Pride Trooper justice. Unless Toyotaro engineers a multiverse crisis arc, Jiren stays on the bench.
Verdict: Power? Plausible. Motive and opportunity? Missing.
#3 — Goku: The Rematch That Writes Itself
True Ultra Instinct Is Still Incomplete
Here's what casual fans miss: the Ultra Instinct that Black Frieza one-shot was not Goku's finished product. Since the Granolah arc and into the Super Hero arc, Goku has been developing True Ultra Instinct — a version fused with his base form that lets him fight with his emotions intact rather than suppressing them like an Angel.
This matters. Goku's emotional fighting style was always his edge, and standard Ultra Instinct stripped it away. A perfected True Ultra Instinct is essentially an entirely new power system — one Black Frieza has never seen.
The Rematch Is Inevitable... Right?
Goku vs Frieza is the most iconic rivalry in anime history. Namek's ghost hangs over every encounter they've ever had. Storytelling logic screams that Goku gets the rematch.
But here's the catch: Dragon Ball has subverted this exact expectation before. On Namek, everyone assumed Vegeta would kill Frieza. In the Cell Games, everyone assumed Goku would finish Cell. Toriyama loved pulling the rug — and Toyotaro has honored that instinct. Goku getting one-shot in Chapter 87 might not be a setup for his revenge. It might be a setup for someone else's.
Verdict: The safe bet — which is exactly why it might not happen.
#2 — Ultra Ego Vegeta: The Perfect Counter Mechanic
Black Frieza's Power Literally Feeds Him
This is where things get genuinely interesting, because Ultra Ego isn't just another power-up — it's a mechanical counter to everything Black Frieza does.
Ultra Ego grows stronger the more damage Vegeta takes. His battle spirit converts punishment into power. Now think about Black Frieza's signature move: overwhelming, one-shot-level blows.
Against any normal opponent, that's a death sentence. Against a mastered Ultra Ego? Every devastating hit Frieza lands is a power deposit into Vegeta's account. The harder Frieza swings, the worse his position gets. No other fighter in the franchise scales into a losing fight like this.
The only reason it didn't work in Chapter 87 is that Vegeta hadn't mastered the form — his body gave out before the mechanic could snowball. That's a training problem, not a design problem.
The Destroyer vs The Tyrant
Then there's the thematic layer. Vegeta is walking the path of a God of Destruction — destruction with purpose, guided by Beerus' teachings. Frieza is destruction as tyranny — planets erased for profit and cruelty.
And beneath all of it sits the oldest wound in the series: Frieza destroyed Planet Vegeta. He wiped out the Saiyan race, murdered Vegeta's father, and turned the Prince of all Saiyans into a child soldier. Vegeta's entire redemption arc — from villain to father to protector — has one perfect ending: standing over the tyrant who stole his people, as a Destroyer God in his own right.
Verdict: The best 1v1 matchup in the series, mechanically and emotionally.
#1 — Beast Gohan: The Destined Finisher
Toyotaro Already Confirmed His Tier
At the end of the Super Hero arc, Gohan unlocked Beast — the final awakening of his dormant potential. And this isn't fan speculation about where it ranks: Toyotaro has stated that Gohan's Beast form and Piccolo's Orange evolution place them on the same tier as Goku and Vegeta's ultimate forms.
The manga then proved it on-page. Beast Gohan went toe-to-toe with Broly in a sparring match — the same Broly who once required Gogeta to handle. Gohan isn't the neglected scholar anymore. He's back at the top table.
The Narrative Destiny Argument
Now stack up the story evidence, because it's overwhelming:
- Gohan was always meant to surpass Goku. Toriyama originally intended to hand the series to Gohan after the Cell saga. That thread was dropped — but never cut.
- Gohan is the rage-trigger fighter. Every legendary Gohan moment — SSJ2 vs Cell, Beast vs Cell Max — came from someone he loves being hurt. Now imagine Black Frieza, the cruelest villain in the franchise, threatening Pan or Videl. That's not just a power-up trigger. That's a detonation.
- The Cell parallel. Goku couldn't finish Cell; Gohan did. Toyotaro is a student of Toriyama's structure. Goku getting embarrassed by Black Frieza in Chapter 87 reads exactly like the setup for history repeating.
- Frieza fears potential. Remember why Frieza destroyed the Saiyans: fear of a being whose power kept growing beyond limits. Gohan — the half-Saiyan whose defining trait is limitless dormant potential — is the literal embodiment of Frieza's oldest nightmare. There is no more poetic executioner.
The Piccolo Factor
And Gohan doesn't come alone. Orange Piccolo is confirmed to be in the same power tier, and the Gohan-Piccolo combination is the best-coordinated duo in the series. If the final battle needs a tag-team phase before Gohan's finishing blow, the pieces are already on the board.
Verdict: Power tier confirmed, rage ceiling unmatched, and 30 years of narrative setup pointing at one moment.
The Real Answer — A Team Battle?
Here's the twist most rankings ignore.
The cover of Dragon Ball Super Volume 24 shows Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Piccolo, and Broly standing together in their strongest forms — and Toyotaro confirmed these five are the co-protagonists going forward, all on a relative tier of power.
That's not how you frame a story ending in a 1v1.
Black Frieza may be Dragon Ball's first true raid boss — a villain so far beyond any single fighter that the arc's entire point is forcing five egos to fight as one. Picture it: Broly and Piccolo holding the line, Goku's True Ultra Instinct and Vegeta's Ultra Ego wearing Frieza down and feeding Ultra Ego's scaling... and Beast Gohan, pushed past his ceiling, landing the final blow.
Every fighter on this list gets their moment. Gohan gets the kill. Vegeta gets the closure. And Frieza's empire ends at the hands of everything he ever feared.
The manga will return eventually. When it does, Black Frieza's countdown starts.
Who's your pick to beat Black Frieza? Drop your theory in the comments — and check out our full Dragon Ball coverage for more breakdowns.
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