Dragon Ball: Is Yamcha the weakest fighter in the franchise? Explained

Dragon Ball is a series with several iconic characters, such as Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, Piccolo, and Future Trunks, among many more, but Yamcha stands out from the rest of the cast for very different reasons. It's no secret that Yamcha has never been among the strongest fighters in the series but has gained relevance due to the memes and his death against a Saibaman in the Saiyan Saga of Z.

Yamcha has never had a good run when it comes to his performances in Dragon Ball, often losing in every fight he is in, even at times when he had the edge. Be that as it may, there is the question among some sections of the fandom if he is the weakest fighter in the franchise, which is a direct result of how he has been perceived for so many years.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for the Dragon Ball series. Any opinion expressed here belongs to the author and not Sportskeeda.

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Explaining if Yamcha is the weakest fighter in the Dragon Ball franchise

Yamcha is clearly not the weakest fighter in the Dragon Ball franchise, especially when analyzing different moments of the series. It is worth pointing out that, barring a comeback in the Moro arc of the Super manga, Yamcha retired from martial arts after the Cell arc, so is prior to that arc that he needs to be analyzed.

He was stronger than the Saibaman who killed him but was only deceived and tricked, which led to his death, although those creatures were as strong as Raditz, according to Vegeta and Nappa, so Yamcha was stronger at the time than Goku's brother. He was also stronger than the likes of Chaos and Yajirobe throughout the series, which needs to be taken into account.

Furthermore, it was during the Dragon Ball Super manga, in the events of the Moro arc, that Yamcha aided the rest of the Z Fighters to defeat a group of criminals and he defeated several enemies for the first time since the Saibaman incident. Yamcha was always a competent enough fighter on his own but never got the chance to get a victory throughout the series, becoming a running joke in the process.

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The power creep in the series

Some of the strongest Earthlings in the series (Image via Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle Wiki)

A running criticism of the Dragon Ball series is the fact that the franchise has a massive problem of power creep and this is something that has been going on since the Z portion of the story. In fact, there are a lot of people who claim that this franchise was the precursor to the power creep issue that a lot of popular shonen series have because of its influence.

Yamcha is perhaps one of the best examples of power creep, even if he was always a character with a comedic edge to him. He was introduced in the early days of the series and has been a valuable ally and friend to Goku ever since but the power scale got so out of hand that he was never able to keep up with the Saiyans.

Furthermore, even characters who are naturally stronger than Yamcha have had similar problems, with someone like Piccolo going from being the biggest threat in the series to a side character who rarely helps in the main fights. That is something that the Super series is trying to correct, although is perhaps way too late for that for the human characters like Krillin or Yamcha.

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Final thoughts

Yamcha is not the weakest fighter in the Dragon Ball franchise and has been shown recently in the Moro arc of Super where he defeated several criminals. He has also been constantly stronger than the likes of Chaoz, Yajirobe, Videl, Raditz, and many more.