Could Goku have really beaten Fat Buu?

[Xyex]

That Gohan didn't even have a definitive advantage on the suppressed Perfect Cell he fought. When Cell powers up to his max, it's obvious from everyone's reactions that he was stronger than they ever imagined.

Gohan never fought seriously against Perfect Cell so of course he never had any difinitive advantage.

I think it's the opposite. Dabura had nothing but magic tricks to throw at Gohan, and all of them were for naught. His goal was to inflict damage, yet he couldn't even do that, and went for a OHKO. Dabura even shot a blast that hit Gohan directly, and it didn't even leave scratches. From that, it seems implied (to me, at least) that Gohan was depicted as the stronger one in that fight.

And yet he couldn't hurt Dabura, either, and was dfinitely the worse for the battle afterwords. Dabura had zero damage, Gohan had lost half of his costume.

You mean spat fire (if you can call it magic) only, because Dabura took the sword after Goku's line. So, all in all, Dabura was better than Goku had thought because he could spit fire? That's ridiculous.

It's because he's got magical abilities in general. It doesn't matter if the sword was formed before or after the statement. Goku didn't know he had magic, Dabura displayed magic, Goku realized he was better than he'd first thought.

Gohan hardly even tried against Cell before he went Super Saiyan 2, and Cell likewise didn't display his own full power until that happened either.

He still wasn't winning, or even making Cell worried at all. This is when Gohan was at his full-power. Cell had yet to reach his full-power, which was apparently a massive increase from what he had been, up until then.

Gohan never displayed his full power until after his SSJ2 transformation.

[Savage68]

Gohan never displayed his full power until after his SSJ2 transformation.

What? I'm talking about SSj 1 Gohan against Cell. Doesn't someone or something usually let the reader know when a character in DB is holding back their power on purpose? The way it works is that (when a character is powered-up) we assume that they're at their max power, unless something indicates otherwise.

As I mentioned to Kaboom, Cell's power-up was far beyond what anyone thought, making whatever his power percentage was against SSj 1 Gohan irrelevant to this conversation. That simply can't be cited.

And yet he couldn't hurt Dabura, either

People still say this?

Anyway, neither managed to hurt another, obviously, but they were for fundamentally different reasons. Gohan couldn't hurt Dabura, because he couldn't get a solid hit on him. He never got the chance to, besides that one kick. His opponent certainly had a big, wide opening; Dabura's blast made direct contact with Gohan, and did absolutely no damage to him.

I'm not sure if you're serious or not when you mention that Gohan's clothes were damaged as a way to discern how much damage he took, but I assume that's a joke.

[Godo]

Anyway, neither managed to hurt another, obviously, but they were for fundamentally different reasons. Gohan couldn't hurt Dabura, because he couldn't get a solid hit on him. He never got the chance to, besides that one kick. His opponent certainly had a big, wide opening; Dabura's blast made direct contact with Gohan, and did absolutely no damage to him.

I'm not sure if you're serious or not when you mention that Gohan's clothes were damaged as a way to discern how much damage he took, but I assume that's a joke.

Just the fact that he couldn't catch up with Dabura shows that Dabura was superior. And Dabura was only to drain energy from Gohan, not to kill him, that's why the blast wasn't that strong. If he would almost kill Gohan, that wouldn't do any good, wouldn't it? If he went seriously, he could have defeated Gohan.
And it's simple, Goku and Vegeta didn't think that Dabura was a problem because of that they were even stronger than Gohan was against Cell. I could even say that they could have matched or surpassed Perfect Cell's max power, even as a regular SSJ.

Goku stated that Dabra was as strong as Cell. Now whether it's Perfect Cell or Super Perfect I don't know.
But he is still confident that Gohan can manage the fight. But during the fight Goku finds out that Dabura is better than he thought.
So Goku thinks that a weaker Gohan should be able to handle an opponent that is almost in the same strength range as Perfect Cell. Then I think that it's clear that:

1) Since Goku had sensed Perfect Cell's max power, and refers to Dabura as someone almost as strong as Perfect Cell, I don't see the fuss. It's clear as a sunny day.
2) Gohan, now weaker, can handle someone in Perfect Cell's range (according to Goku), ergo he should have been able to when he was stronger.
3) Goku wasn't concerned over the fight in the least.

[hleV]

Well, he spat fire and could use magic to create a sword from nowhere.

You mean spat fire (if you can call it magic) only, because Dabura took the sword after Goku's line. So, all in all, Dabura was better than Goku had thought because he could spit fire? That's ridiculous.

Eh, yeah. Included the whole fight that we didn't see (I mean, the part of the fight that wasn't shown in the panels), yeah, Goku could well have made an accurate notion, that included all the abilities we didn't see.
That, and that Dabura's fighting was skilled, more skilled than Gohan's to add. Otherwise Gohan wouldn't have to struggle.

Also, when I try to help out in a discussion, I find it sad that you call my theory "ridiculous". I don't know what kind of problems you have in you private life or whatever, but don't throw that crap at me.

How can you tell that Goku was referring to Dabura's magical abilities? That's right, you can't. There was only one moment where Dabura used magic from what we seen of that fight before Goku's comment, everything else was either melee/beam fight.

And for trying to somehow defend yourself by involving my private life, you are now ridiculous as a person (since my private life has nothing to do with this at all).

[Kaboom]

I think any and all points that could be made have been made.