Was Goku able to beat Freeza before he turned Super Saiyan?

[Ssjcell]

Could he ?

[Darkprince410]

There was no way, not with Freeza in his final form. Goku threw absolutely everything he had at Freeza, including his highest level of Kaiou-ken as well as a Genki Dama with power he thought was more than enough to take him out, but both still failed. There wasn't anything he had available to him that would have done the trick.

[Regarder]

With the way the story went there's nothing he could have done. If you allow for the same power he was then but a somewhat altered scenario then there is a small chance to beat Frieza without Super Saiyan. The only way a Goku of that power could beat Frieza would be if A: he had the Dragonballs wish back his tail, B: learned the power ball to create a fake moon, C: learned to control Oozaru like Vegeta, and D: it was possible to stack Kaioken with Oozaru, which I can't see why it wouldn't be. Then Frieza fight strength base Goku could get up to a 200x boost by using the 10x of Oozaru with the 20x Kaioken, which should be enough to kill Frieza with a blast, especially without letting him go 100%.

[Lord Frieza]

It's actually quit shocking when you look at the numbers and how the story progressed.

All though Dragon Ball Goku held the edge in raw power, right up to his fight with Piccolo at the 23rd Budokai. During his fights with Radditz and Vegeta Goku's facing a foe just over twice as strong as he is, more so when Vegeta transformed.

Then we get to Frieza. Goku is clearly the underdog when their fight starts but he's doing well, only for Frieza to drop the bombshell that he's only using 1% of his full power. In reality he's almost 50x stronger then Goku is and could literally obliterate him in a heart beat if he were at all being serious. EDIT: As Darkprince410 said Goku threw everything he had at Frieza and it failed, in that moment Goku was totally beaten. Every other fight befor and after in the original series their was always some hidden power or plan or help that would have saved the day. But in that moment Frieza is seen standing, very much alive and only a bit worse for wear, all hope was lost. Goku and his friends had given it their all and it just wasn't enough.

[Lionel]

Not through any kind of conventional means he could have, no. Now if Goku somehow knew the Kienzan or if he had been able to successfully lodge a narrow projectile through Freeza's eyes or auditory orifices into his brain then it's possible he could have won. You're talking about a mentality that the likes of Goku is almost assuredly never going to adopt, though.

[Polyphase Avatron]

If Goku had somehow grown his tail back, or learned how to use Oozaru power in humanoid form, then his power level would increase to 30,000,000, and then he would just need Kaio-ken X4 or higher to beat Freeza.

But that's rather unlikely.

[Regarder]

To take this further, if Goku and Vegeta were totally out of character and teamed up then Goku could have taught Vegeta Kaioken. The point is: Vegeta with only the powerlevel of 18,000 from his first appearance could boost up past first form Frieza with Oozaru using Kaioken x4, which would be 720,000. With a sudden attack at full power, they could have destroyed him immediately with this plan:
1: Locate Frieza on Namek or other planet.
2: Keep power supressed just over the horizon/behind some cliffs
3: Goku throws up power ball up to save Vegeta some energy
4: Vegeta turns into Oozaru, goes to Kaioken x 4, and readies mouth blast
5: At this point, Frieza and crews scouters will start going biip biip biip and then probably explode, alerting them but still leaving them in WTF stage
6: They jump out, Goku goes first and does solar flare to blind them and then moves aside
7: Vegeta mouth blasts a totally taken by surprise, confused and blinded Frieza into oblivion with a 720,000+ attack while he's still sitting in his dainty little hover chair trying to process this level of f*ckery.

...but that's not how saiyans roll. The characters have to be totally out of character to be able to beat Frieza another way. It would have sucked anyway. You can't big Super Saiyan up so much and then not have Goku use it to win. Goku isn't doing it for them, but thematically it's the revenge of the Saiyan race too.

[theherodjl]

As many others have pointed out, yes. Goku could have defeated Freeza via conventional or unconventional means but he simply didn't because 1) He refuses to fight dirty, 2) He doesn't want to end the fight as quickly as he can, and 3) He's an idiot. We know that Goku can use both the Taiyoken & Kienzan but he doesn't like using them due to his sense of fair-play, Goku could have used the Kaio-ken x10 as soon as he encountered Freeza and obliterated the villain before he could power up but Goku likes fighting too much, and In the end, its never Goku's intelligence that wins the fight but his power & determination. If Goku encounters a foe who is strong or worthy of fighting then he just throws easy victory out the window just so he can enjoy himself, his most notable trait of loving to fight is both his strength & weakness.