You know who else wasn't anything like 17 or 18? 16.
There's no reason to assume that Gero upgraded Tao Pai Pai.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Tao Pai Pai never worked for the Red Ribbon Army. He contracted for them. There's an important difference there.
He was a freelancer whose relationship with the RRA is solely that they hired him for an assassination job while he was celebrating his half-off sale for 20 Years of Assassination. After Goku blew him up, he returned home to the Crane school and used his immense wealth to buy his cybernetics.
edited 26th Dec '14 6:18:11 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Given that DBO had Android 9 be Commander Red revived, I like the idea of Tao Pai Pai being Android 10 (his cyborg form in DBO is called "Tao Pai Pai X" as well). Gero's the only cyborg creator we know of in the series, and Tao Pai Pai's fortune would've helped his research improve.
Of course the Full Colour Q & A's show that just tying characters together isn't necessarily a good thing with Satan and Tao Pai Pai's messy connection, so I can see why some won't like the idea.
edited 26th Dec '14 6:20:45 PM by Saiga
Satan? As in Known as Hercule in the West Satan?
How the hell are Satan and Tao Pai Pai connected? Did they go to the same Barber or something?
edited 26th Dec '14 6:26:02 PM by HandsomeRob
One Strip! One Strip!When Mr. Satan was young, he attended a fighting dojo called “Satan Castle”. Through a combination of considerable power and good luck (his rival fighting opponent would get food poisoning, for instance), he quickly became world champion and was called “Mr. Satan” after the name of his dojo. One day, at a bar in South City (where they were on tour), Satan and his martial-arts master made the mistake of making fun of Tao Pai-pai’s hairstyle. His master was killed, and Satan was heavily injured. From then on, Mr. Satan solemnly swore never to fight anyone whose true identity he didn’t know, or anyone who seemed crazy strong.
Retcons, retcons everywhere.
Yeah, it's a retcon, because Satan's behaviour isn't consistent with the backstory.
He attacked Cell while not knowing his identity, and after Cell was doing ridiculous displays of strength. He can pass off the latter by saying he didn't believe the feats of strength were real, but the fact that he knows nothing of Cell who doesn't even look human really sticks out.
Yep. It's also a retcon that didn't need to be made. Oh, it's not that he fought Tao Pai Pai and got utterly and completely trounced, no, it's that bit about not fighting people he doesn't know anything about or who seem crazy strong. If that wasn't there, it would just be something that people hadn't thought about.
himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimariExcept he does know about Cell, he's the monster responsive for the death of dozens of cities, a threat to the planet, and he appeared on live television to announce the Cell Games. I think it's more like he won't fight someone who he knows absolutely nothing about, which is a category that Cell isn't technically in.
Let's see if you can get past my Beelzemon. Mephiles, WARP SHINKA!Yeah, no. He doesn't know anything about Cell except his name and that he's killed some people. That's absolutely nothing.
Looking at Tao Pai Pai, he can tell that he's a human in an outfit with a moustache and stupid hair. Apparently that's not enough to count in the category of "people he knows about".
edited 26th Dec '14 7:14:23 PM by Saiga
Gohan totally could have dodged this.
Like, no child in that tournament could have had a power level higher than ten. And whatever training they had, it couldn't possibly, in a billion years, match up against the two Eldritch Abominations trained by Warrior Gods.
My various fanfics.

He used Tao to improve things.
The latter is a lot closer to 17 and 18 than Metalitron (fully mechanical) or Android Eight (doesn't really look like a normal human).
Tao is a noticeable android, but only if he doesn't keep his head and hands covered.
One Strip! One Strip!