The connecting record
shownDragon Ball (manga)
Gohan killed Cell in Dragon Ball (manga).
Fired one-handed at the end of a beam struggle, in the moment after Vegeta's blast turned Cell's head. Nothing of the regrown body was left.
What each of them is ranked on
The killer · Gohan · rank 4
Beast — manga
The form arrives in a film and then does the thing that matters in the manga: he lands a clean hit on a Goku who is holding mastered ultra instinct, which nobody else in the run manages. One demonstrated success against the top of the previous order, with far less accumulated record behind it than the men he startled.
shownDragon Ball Super (manga) · Super Hero arc
Strikes Goku while Goku is in mastered ultra instinct. — 2024
shownDragon Ball Super: Super Hero · 2022
The Beast transformation debuts and defeats Cell Max.
The victim · Cell · rank 11
Perfect form — anime · manga
The most instructive absence on the page. He is the apex threat of an entire era and there is no well-attested official figure for him anywhere — the numbering had already been dropped by the time he arrived, so the franchise's central villain of the period was never priced at all. What he does is shown clearly enough: he holds the field against everyone present until a boy who had not been the protagonist takes it off him.
shownDragon Ball Z · Cell Games Saga
Defeated by Gohan after overwhelming the assembled fighters. — 1993
What this does not settle
One death in one work. It is the only place the record puts these two in the same room, and it is evidence about that meeting and nothing wider — not a general matchup, not a rematch, and not a ranking of its own.
The ladder above it is argued from everything either of them has been shown doing; this page is argued from one citation.
Where the two disagree, the disagreement is the point, and it stays visible rather than being resolved by whichever of them happens to be on this page.