Goku vs Vegeta. One of the famous rivalries in all of anime history. The sweet prince of all Saiyan vs some common peasant, the rivalry that’s been going since the Saiyan Saga.
Every Dragon Ball fan has an opinion on who wins this one — and the answer is almost always Goku, because that’s how the show works. The hero wins. BUT
But SaltyBet isn’t a show. There’s no plot armor here. It’s just AI-controlled MUGEN characters fighting it out in a 24/7 arena, and we’ve got the data on every single match. So we pulled up our database of over half a million SaltyBet matches to find out: when it’s purely about performance, who actually comes out on top? In the quiet words of Vegeta from where in the DBZ series, “I make it my business to know” — so read on.
The answer might surprise you.
Unlike Scorpion vs Sub-Zero, who only managed 4 meetings across our entire dataset, Goku and Vegeta variants have crossed paths 17 times in SaltyBet. That’s still rare — spread across nearly 4 years and thousands of matches — but it’s enough to tell a real story.
And the story is this: Vegeta leads the head-to-head 11-6.
That’s right! My guy Vegeta, the sweet Prince of All Saiyans doesn’t just edge it out — he DOMINATES. Across every tier, every format, every variant pairing, Vegeta wins nearly two-thirds of the time when these two meet.
Here’s the full record:
| Date | Matchup | Winner | Tier | Crowd Favorite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2022 | Vegeta ssb vs Tournament of power goku | Goku | S | Vegeta (57%) |
| Feb 2022 | Super3 goku EX vs Vegeta ssb | Vegeta | S | Goku (89%) |
| Sep 2022 | Bebi vegeta vs Goku kid | Vegeta | P | Goku (54%) |
| Apr 2023 | Son goku (ginyu) vs Majin vegeta ssj6 | Vegeta | P | Goku (78%) |
| May 2023 | Bootleg goku vs Majin vegeta ssj6 | Vegeta | P | Vegeta (70%) |
| May 2023 | Super saiyan 2 vegeta vs Goku black | Vegeta | A | Goku (80%) |
| Jul 2023 | Vegeta ssb vs Old goku | Vegeta | S | Vegeta (89%) |
| Aug 2023 | Vegeta z2 vs Son goku | Vegeta | B | Vegeta (88%) |
| Sep 2023 | Super vegeta ai-barbatos vs Goku ssj5 absalon | Goku | B | Goku (57%) |
| Nov 2023 | Goku black ssr vs Vegeta ssb | Goku | S | Goku (73%) |
| Dec 2023 | Super goku vs Super vegeta EX3 | Vegeta | B | Vegeta (63%) |
| Jan 2024 | Goku vs Majin vegeta | Vegeta | S | Goku (71%) |
| Apr 2024 | Vegeta z2 vs Ultimat goku | Vegeta | B | Vegeta (70%) |
| Sep 2024 | Super vegeta ai-barbatos vs Goku ssj5 absalon | Goku | B | Goku (81%) |
| Feb 2025 | Majin vegeta EX3 vs Goku mythos | Vegeta | B | Goku (87%) |
| Aug 2025 | Goku black ssr vs Vegeta ssb | Goku | S | Goku (79%) |
| Jan 2026 | Goku-kofm vs Vegeta-st | Goku | S | Goku (84%) |
2023 was Vegeta’s year — he went 6-2 against Goku variants. But even in the years where it’s closer, Vegeta holds his own.
Here’s where it gets really interesting. The crowd favored Goku in 10 out of 17 matches. Main character bias is alive and well on SaltyBet — the crowd sees a Goku variant and throws money at it. Borrowing a phrase from Vegeta, the crowd loves the “circus clown”, lol.
Vegeta won 5 of his 7 underdog appearances. When the crowd bets against the Prince, he makes them pay 71% of the time. Meanwhile Goku only won once as an underdog out of 7 chances. I can just hear Vegeta’s smug grunt of reassurance — as if there was ever any doubt!
| Stat | Goku | Vegeta |
|---|---|---|
| Times crowd favorite | 10 | 7 |
| Wins as favorite | 5 | 6 |
| Wins as underdog | 1 | 5 |
| Underdog win rate | 14.3% | 71.4% |
Vegeta is one of the most effective underdog fighters in our head-to-head data. When the crowd doesn’t believe in him, he wins anyway. That 71.4% underdog conversion rate against Goku variants is absurd.
This is where the scale of the Dragon Ball universe in MUGEN becomes clear: Goku has 73 variants in the SaltyBet database. Vegeta has 34. Combined, they account for over 9,300 matches — more than some entire franchises (more on that another day).
The Goku roster includes every transformation you can think of: base form, SSJ through SSJ5, Super Saiyan Blue, Ultra Instinct, GT versions, kid versions, evil versions, and some truly creative community builds like “Greek goku,” “Minecraft goku,” and the immortal “Hey! it’s me goku!”
Vegeta’s roster is smaller but still deep: base form, Majin Vegeta, Super Saiyan 2, SSB, SSBE, GT, and community variants like “Vegeta-st” and “Super vegeta ai-barbatos.” And in this author’s humble opinion, they’re all really friggin sweet.
Despite the massive gap in roster size, their overall performance is almost identical.
| Metric | Goku | Vegeta |
|---|---|---|
| Variants | 73 | 34 |
| Total Matches | 6,714 | 2,614 |
| Combined Win Rate | 46.8% | 46.4% |
| S-Tier Matches | 3,268 | 525 |
| A-Tier Matches | 1,625 | 786 |
| B-Tier Matches | 1,235 | 1,045 |
| X-Tier Matches | 328 | 118 |
| H2H Record | 6 | 11 |
SaltyTrack data from 9,300+ combined matches shows that Goku and Vegeta variants perform almost identically — 46.8% vs 46.4% — but Vegeta dominates the head-to-head 11-6. So in other words, almost equal performance when fighting everyone else, but H2H, the Prince of All Saiyans stands tall.
The biggest difference is tier distribution. Goku has nearly half his matches in S-tier (the second-highest), while Vegeta’s matches skew toward B and A-tier. Goku has more elite variants in the highest tiers, but that doesn’t translate to winning when they actually face each other.
| Variant | Matches | Record | Win Rate | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goku-hell | 258 | 203-55 | 78.7% | S |
| Goku-kofm | 239 | 183-56 | 76.6% | S |
| Goku ssj5 absalon | 132 | 92-40 | 69.7% | B |
| Son goku EX3 | 210 | 138-72 | 65.7% | A |
| Goku black ssr | 228 | 146-82 | 64.0% | S |
Goku-hell is the strongest Goku by a wide margin — 78.7% across 258 matches in S-tier is elite. Goku-kofm is right behind at 76.6%. These two are legitimate S-tier threats.
| Variant | Matches | Record | Win Rate | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Super saiyan 2 vegeta | 172 | 122-50 | 70.9% | A |
| Vegeta EX3 | 202 | 131-71 | 64.9% | A |
| Vegeta gt | 192 | 124-68 | 64.6% | A |
| Super vegeta ai-barbatos | 114 | 71-43 | 62.3% | B |
| Vegeta-st | 197 | 111-86 | 56.3% | S |
Super saiyan 2 vegeta is the Prince’s ace — 70.9% in A-tier across 172 matches. Not quite Goku-hell’s numbers, but dominant in its own tier. Vegeta EX3 and Vegeta gt are close behind and both rock solid.
Goku’s worst: Goku ssj5 EX (12.8%, 78 matches, B-tier) — you’d think SSJ5 would be stronger, but this variant loses almost 9 out of 10. Son goku (15.6%, 109 matches, B-tier) — the base form gets absolutely cooked.
Vegeta’s worst: Vegeta ssj4 (18.2%, 148 matches, A-tier) — the GT transformation isn’t doing him any favors.. maybe the author prefers the canon as opposed to the GT storyline. Vegeta ssj5 (21.8%, 101 matches, B-tier) — like Goku’s SSJ5, the highest power levels don’t always mean better AI.
The data tells us three things:
1. Vegeta is the better underdog. When the crowd bets against him in the head-to-head, he wins 71% of the time. Goku is used to being the favorite — and when he’s not, he only converts 14% of the time. In SaltyBet terms, that’s the difference between a fighter who thrives under pressure and one who folds.
2. Goku’s depth is a double-edged sword. Having 73 variants means more total matches, but it also means more bad variants dragging the average down. Goku ssj5 EX at 12.8% and Son goku at 15.6% are dead weight. Vegeta’s smaller roster is more concentrated — fewer variants, but a higher proportion of them are competitive, which is in line with his spirit of demanding performance.
3. The crowd’s main character bias is real. The crowd bets on Goku because he’s Goku, BANDWAGONERS! He’s the hero. He always wins in the anime. But SaltyBet doesn’t have plot armor, it just delivers straight fax. The MUGEN AI doesn’t know or care that Goku is supposed to win — it just executes its programming. And Vegeta’s programming wins more often.
In SaltyBet, the Prince beats the hero. Vegeta leads 11-6, and the data says it’s not a fluke.
If you’re betting on a Goku vs Vegeta matchup on SaltyBet:
This is the second article in SaltyTrack’s Franchise Performance Series. Slight spoiler alert here, after finding that Scorpion beats Sub-Zero in the Mortal Kombat rivalry, we wanted to see if the same pattern held in another iconic matchup.
It didn’t — instead we found a completely different story. In MK, the character with more variants (Scorpion) also won the rivalry. In Dragon Ball, the character with more variants (Goku) loses the head-to-head despite having nearly identical overall performance.
The common thread? The crowd gets it wrong. They bet on Sub-Zero because of the name. They bet on Goku because of the anime. And in both cases, the data says they’re leaving money on the table.
Street Fighter likely the next series up, or maybe King of Fighters as I’m partial to the Kyo vs Iori story — stand by to see which one is up next!
Want to check any matchup yourself? SaltyTrack’s Matchup Tool lets you look up head-to-head records and AI predictions for any two fighters in the database. And the SaltyTrack Chrome Extension shows you predictions, win rates, and confidence levels in real time — right on the SaltyBet betting screen.
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