Johnny Lawrence’s Post-Cobra Kai Fate Confirms Series’ True Happy Ending
Johnny Lawrence’s (William Zabka) appearance in Karate Kid: Legends confirms that Cobra Kai‘s happy ending lasted. Johnny and his eternal karate rival, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), finally put their animosity aside and became true friends at the end of Cobra Kai.
Johnny and Daniel’s roller coaster run as frenemies lasted the length of Cobra Kai’s 6 seasons. Over 30 years after losing to LaRusso in The Karate Kid‘s All Valley Under 18 Karate Tournament, Johnny never recovered, and his life was in shambles. Restarting the Cobra Kai dojo was Johnny’s way out, and his Hail Mary means of bettering himself.
However, the return of Cobra Kai, the dojo that tormented him during his teenage years, was something Daniel felt he had to stop. What resulted was a complex dojo war between Cobra Kai and Daniel’s resurgent Miyagi-Do that lasted years, with their children and their friends caught in their web and developing karate rivalries of their own.
Cobra Kai’s ending saw Daniel stand in Johnny’s corner as his sensei as Lawrence fought Sensei Wolf (Lewis Tan) in the finals of the Sekai Taikai tournament. Johnny’s win, with Daniel’s help, slayed the demon that had haunted Lawrence since 1984. Johnny was the winner he was always meant to be, on karate’s grandest global stage.
Johnny’s Scene In Karate Kid: Legends Confirms He And Daniel Remained Friends
As a new corner of the wider Karate Kid/Cobra Kai ‘Miyagiverse,’ Karate Kid: Legends only involved Ralph Macchio returning as Daniel LaRusso to join Jackie Chan as Mr. Han in training Li Fong (Ben Wang). However, William Zabka does pop up as Johnny Lawrence in Karate Kid: Legends, and it’s the button that makes Cobra Kai’s ending mean even more.
When Daniel receives a pizza delivery all the way from New York, Johnny is with LaRusso at Mr. Miyagi’s house, scoffing at New York pizza when “everybody knows the best pizza is from Encino.” His beloved Coors Banquet in hand, Johnny then hilariously pitches a Miyagi-themed pizza business complete with karate-derived taglines.
Karate Kid: Legends is set three years after Cobra Kai‘s ending, and Johnny’s cameo is welcome confirmation that Senseis Lawrence and LaRusso are still friends. At this point, Johnny is also presumably still married to Carmen Diaz (Vanessa Rubio), and their daughter, Laura, should be about 3 years old.
Johnny and Daniel are likely still working together, with Sensei Lawrence running the Cobra Kai dojo. It’s not clear if Miyagi-Do is still an active dojo in Karate Kid: Legends. But the truly important thing is that Johnny and Daniel are still real friends who enjoy spending time together.
Johnny And Daniel’s Friendship Fell Apart Multiple Times During Cobra Kai
When Cobra Kai began, it was hard to imagine an endgame where Johnny and Daniel would genuinely become friends years later. The old hatred between Lawrence and LaRusso reared its head quickly in Cobra Kai season 1, and there were points where Johnny and Lawrence did truly insane things to undermine each other.
Periodically in Cobra Kai’s early seasons, Johnny and Daniel would call a truce and work together. What became clear to their significant others, Carmen and Amanda (Courtney Henggeler), Daniel’s wife, and even Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue), when she returned in Cobra Kai season 3, is that Johnny and Daniel are much more alike than they think.
The threats John Kreese (Martin Kove) and Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) posed to the San Fernando Valley united Johnny and Daniel as senseis, but their acceptance that they were becoming friends was gradual and was always laced with suspicion and even the expectation that they would betray each other.
It took going to Barcelona, Spain, to coach their students in the Sekai Taikai for Johnny and Daniel to break down the last of the walls keeping them from being friends for real. Daniel becoming Johnny’s sensei and leading him to a win over Sensei Wolf was the redemption Johnny had needed for decades.
Johnny and Daniel finally realized they are better and more effective together as friends than as enemies.
At the end of Cobra Kai, Johnny and Daniel finally realized they are better and more effective together as friends than as enemies, even though they can still drive each other crazy, as evidenced in Karate Kid: Legends.
Cobra Kai Was Always About Daniel And Johnny Finding Their Balance Again
Some of the best scenes in Cobra Kai were Daniel and Johnny as friends, including the cool sequence of them riding down Ventura Boulevard set to The Who’s “Eminence Front” in Cobra Kai season 6. Johnny and Daniel finally buried the hatchet from The Karate Kid in 1984, and they’re thick as thieves at the end of Cobra Kai.
Cobra Kai began with Johnny as the main character, but the scope expanded quickly to include Daniel as his foil, with their kids and ever-growing roster of students caught up in their rivalry. Admirably, Cobra Kai never diminished Johnny or Daniel, and the ups and downs of their relationship drove their wins and losses in Cobra Kai.
As an individual, Johnny had to find balance in his life as a sensei to his students, as a father to Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan) and Miguel Diaz (Xolo Mariduena), as a romantic partner to Carmen, and, finally, as a true friend to Daniel. Alternatively, LaRusso worked through his own negative traits that battling Johnny brought out.
Ultimately, Johnny and Daniel could not be complete as people without recognizing their symbiotic relationship and finding balance with each other. Daniel had enjoyed big wins in The Karate Kid movies, but those types of epic triumphs eluded Johnny until the end of Cobra Kai. With Daniel’s help, Johnny got the big win he’d always needed to put his demons to rest.
As funny as Johnny and Daniel’s banter is in Karate Kid: Legends, which showed they are still the same characters that Netflix’s global audience fell in love with in Cobra Kai, the best part of Lawrence’s cameo is that it cements that Johnny and Daniel are simpatico, and they will hopefully remain buddies for the rest of their lives.
Release Date
2018 – 2025-00-00
Network
Netflix, YouTube Premium
Showrunner
Jon Hurwitz
Directors
Hayden Schlossberg, Jon Hurwitz, Joel Novoa, Jennifer Celotta, Steven K. Tsuchida, Sherwin Shilati, Marielle Woods, Steve Pink, Lin Oeding, Michael Grossman
Writers
Josh Heald, Ashley Darnall, Chris Rafferty, Bill Posley
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