Or is it that he has surpassed it several times?
Vegeta has had a rivalry with Goku since Kakarotto first became Super Saiyan in Dragon Ball Z, but really his true opponent and rival was another. Throughout his history, he has had heroes who become villains or villains who become best friends with Goku and company, but Vegeta has always been surrounded by doubts about his friendships/enmities.
Before continuing, we recommend that you read the last chapters of this work that are **available in the online service of MangaPlus by Shueisha. In Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball chapter 383, Cell has unlocked his perfect form after absorbing both Android 17 and Android 18, and Vegeta couldn’t be happier. While training to fight Cell, Vegeta and Trunks unlocked their ‘Super’ forms which were more powerful than SSJ1 though not as powerful as SSJ2. With this newfound strength, Vegeta was able to defeat Cell in combat, so he encouraged the villain to reach his full power, revealing his true enmity.
When Vegeta fought Perfect Cell, he quickly realized that he was outmatched, a failure that was highlighted when Krillin revealed that Trunks would have had a better chance of beating Cell in his final form than Vegeta. Krillin could tell that not only did Trunks surpass Super Saiyan form, but his ‘Super’ form was stronger than Vegeta’s, meaning that just as Vegeta surpassed Goku in terms of strength, he still found himself weaker than Vegeta. another Saiyan warrior, only this time it was Trunks. This reveal showed that Trunks officially (and unintentionally) usurped Goku’s position as Vegeta’s greatest rival.which made Vegeta that much more determined to become stronger than Trunks just like he was going to become more powerful than Goku.
While all of this power escalation was incredibly short-lived, as Goku, at that very moment, was training in the Time Chamber with Gohan to become stronger than Vegeta and Trunks, it was a significant moment in Dragon Ball history, as that upset the previously established status quo. Before Cell arrived on the scene, Vegeta claimed that the only reason he stayed on Earth with the Z Fighters after the Frieza Saga was to become stronger than Goku, and just as he did, Vegeta immediately found himself in someone else’s shadow..
The eternal rivalry of Goku and Vegeta in Dragon Ball
It is a known fact to all Dragon Ball fans that Vegeta considers Goku to be his greatest rival, but during a specific period of time in Vegeta’s life, that was not the case, as Vegeta’s true greatest rival was revealed to be none other than his own son, Trunks..
When Vegeta and Goku met, their relationship was a little different than it is today. On the one hand, Vegeta was a hardened villain who came to Earth with the sole purpose of killing every living thing on the planet and then selling the vacant world to the highest bidder. What Vegeta was not, however, was insecurity about his power level. While Vegeta was surprised when he first met Goku, as Goku’s power level was “over 9000”, he managed to beat Goku effectively when the two fought one on one, and was not defeated until the other Z Fighters intervened.. It wasn’t until Goku turned Super Saiyan for the first time that Vegeta saw Kakarrot as a legitimate opponent and sought to outdo him, something Vegeta managed to do soon after. During the Android and Cell sagas, Vegeta not only became a Super Saiyan, but also achieved power greater than Super Saiyan in the form of Super Vegeta, an achievement that was immediately overshadowed.
Being stronger than Vegeta just as Vegeta became stronger than Goku, Trunks completely undermined Vegeta’s triumph (no matter how brief it was).), which made Vegeta’s determination to surpass Trunks that much more intense, a chain of events that indicates that Trunks is actually Vegeta’s greatest rival in Dragon Ball.