Goku vs Roshi 21st Budokai

[SSJ2]

How close do you think they are purely in terms of power? Rereading the fight, it looks like Goku has a much bigger gap than most give him credit for. What do you think?

 

[ahill1]

I think they were closely matched. It seems that Kame was getting more frustrated as the fight went on, but they seemed to have different mentalities when approaching the fight. Kame wanted to quickly get rid of Goku and teach him a lesson, not believing some brat, although Goku he is, could compete with him blow for blow. Meanwhile, Goku seemed to be excited with fighting such an awesome old geezer and wanted to enjoy the fight as much as possible. It seems their main gap was regarding their stamina, as Jackie was tiring faster. It's also worth noting that when the fight was over, Goku said he couldn't defeat Jackie Chun either way, spoken to Kuririn. Could be only Goku being humble with the man he was looking for, but I think that speaks to how evenly matched they were. When Goku got a lead over him and almost knocked him out bounds, we have to remember too that Jackie just had used his FP KMHMH to destroy the moon and was winded, which he makes not of.

 

[SSJ2]

The part of the fight that I'm referencing is before Goku turned into an Oozaru. The most compelling evidence for both of them being near equals is the KHH clash where Goku literally said they were even, but the fight after this disagrees. Roshi tried to one up Goku with a double Zanzoken, but Goku managed to one up that with a triple. From that point on Roshi had to resort to tricks instead of pure fighting power. He used the Sui-ken, and then resorted to hypnosis after being hurt by Goku's monkey attack. After being hit by the Janken he resorted to his ultimate attack, the Bankoku Bikkuri Sho. I think this panel is quite telling:



"I have no choice". Goku was never in any position like this. Yamcha and Krillin had both pretty well declared victory for Goku just prior and Yamcha even pointed out that Roshi's stamina was hurting.

At best this reminds me of Goku vs Cell. Goku was still completely fresh until after he was forced out of Oozaru and was clearly the superior fighter - everyone's reactions to the fight point to that. He had to resort to tricks and non-physical techniques to deal with Goku while Goku had no such trouble.

 

[Diamond Ryan]

Goku definitely had a decent edge over Roshi. The Kamehameha clash could be explained as Roshi having superior ki control, but Roshi seemed outmatched everywhere else.