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| “ | Johnny: My whole life was haunted by one stupid kick. I thought if I could go back in time, do things different, dodge it, block it, my life would be fixed. The kick wasn't the problem. I had to stop focusing on what was behind. Start looking at what was in front of me. Chozen: We are same. Both make mistakes. Both feel guilt for pain we caused. Now, you have, uh, friends. Family. Children. I always wanted same thing. |
„ |
| ~ Johnny and Chozen Toguchi |
John "Johnny" Lawrence is the deuteragonist of The Karate Kid franchise.
He was initially Cobra Kai's number one student and Daniel LaRusso's arch-rival during his youth, frequently bullying him due to dating his ex Ali Mills, only for Daniel to beat him at the 1984 All Valley. Thirty years later, a depressed and alcoholic Johnny reopened the Cobra Kai dojo to get back at Daniel, only to be forced to ally with his old friend to take down Cobra Kai founder John Kreese.
He is portrayed by William Zabka and Owen D. Stone and Thomas Parobek as a child.
Biography[]
When Johnny was a kid, his parents had a fairly messy divorce, with his presumably alcoholic father leaving him with his mother at a young age, though Johnny kept some of his old items and hid them from his mom. His mother eventually married a rich man named Sid, who was overtly cruel to Johnny. One day, while skateboarding, Johnny came across the Cobra Kai dojo, and was inspired to join it. There, he found a new father figure in the dojo's sensei, John Kreese, and became it's star student, winning two All-Valley tournaments in a row. In 1982, while at the theater, he met Ali Mills, and the two began dating. After two years, they got into a fight and broke up.
The Karate Kid[]
| “ | The summer of 82, Rocky III had just come out, my buddy Dutch was a huge Mr. T fan, so we went to the local theater to check it out. Sitting in front of us was this group of cute chicks eating popcorn. And Dutch started throwing milk duds at them. (...) Cause it's an alpha move man. Babes love when you treat them like crap. Anyway, eventually the girls got so pissed off, one of them stood up and started yelling at us. That's when I saw her for the first time. (...) Ali. She dumped popcorn all over Dutch, got butter all over him. I could tell right away, man, this chick was a firecracker. (...) Yeah, I hit on her a few times, til she gave me a chance. Went to Golf N Stuff for our fist date, kissed on the Ferris wheel. We were madly in love. Dated for 2 years. For, uh, Valentines Day, Instead of rings, I sent her a pink jelly bracelet. She gave me this. (...) Summer before my senior year, we got into a fight. I figured we'd work things out eventually. But then Daniel LaRusso came into town. Next thing I know, he's hitting on her. I see the two of them flirting with each other. (...) Well, I waked over to have a civil conversation with Ali. LaRusso kept butting in. I told him to get lost, mind your own business. Out of nowhere, the guy sucker punches me. (...) I know, man. I did what any dude would do, I defended myself. You know, I figured, that was that. But LaRusso wouldn't leave it alone. At the Halloween dance, I'm sitting there minding my own business, he douses me with a water hose. Hadn't seen the guy in months, freaking turns a water hose on my head. So I chase him down. Try to put an end to things that night. Turns out the guy's got a karate master of his own. Guy comes out of nowhere, jumps us, assaults me and my friends, I think my buddy Tommy got brain damage cause of that fight. (...) Eventually, we decided to work things out at the All-Valley Tournament. So we both made to the finals, it was 2-2... (...) LaRusso won, I lost. But what's worse, is I lost Ali. | „ |
| ~ Johnny's explaining The Karate Kid from his perspective. |
Johnny was the best student of John Kreese's Cobra Kai Dojo and the leader of the gang of bullies representing the dojo, as well as the ex-boyfriend of Ali Mills.
Throughout the film, Johnny torments and bullies the protagonist Daniel LaRusso. But when Kreese told Johnny to "sweep the leg" in order to beat Daniel at the All-Valley Karate Tournament, Johnny gives Kreese a frightened glance (while also possibly realizing that Kreese had gone too far).
After he lost to Daniel, Johnny shows respect to Daniel and gives him the first-place trophy. With that, he and Daniel patch things up and became former rivals.
The Karate Kid Part II[]
At the beginning of the second film, while Johnny was perfectly fine with winning second-place, Kreese was not as he broke the trophy in two after Johnny called him a sore loser. After an argument between Kreese and Johnny (which Daniel and Miyagi take notice of), Kreese violently berates Johnny, but Miyagi stops him. After that, Johnny and the rest of the Cobra Kai students left Kreese in the parking lot, now seeing Kreese for the kind of man he really was.
The Karate Kid Part III[]
Johnny appears in a montage in the beginning of the movie. He was not seen nor mentioned, but there is a reference of Johnny and his friends when Johnny and his friends are implied to have left Cobra Kai following Kreese's actions in the beginning of The Karate Kid Part II; in the present day, Kreese doesn't have any students left.
Cobra Kai[]
Season 1[]
| “ | QUIET! | „ |
| ~ Johnny's catchphrase. |
34 years after losing the tournament, Johnny is down on luck. When he meets his new neighbor Miguel, he is hostile with him; he later beats up a group of bullies who were harassing Miguel, who asks him to teach him karate. At first, Johnny refuses, but later changes his mind and decides to train him. He reopens the Cobra Kai dojo and managed to have it reinstated, which causes his rivalry with Daniel to get reignited. He later gets more students at the Cobra Kai thanks to Miguel. He teaches all of them to strike first, and act merciless to their opponents, which is what Kreese taught him. While Cobra Kai was initially banned from the All Valley Tournament because of the actions of Kreese, Terry Silver and Mike Barnes in 1985 (in The Karate Kid Part 3), Johnny convinces the committee to reinstate Cobra Kai.
During the tournament, his students Miguel and Eli (Hawk) make it to the semifinals, but Johnny's son Robby also makes it to the semifinals. During the semifinals, Hawk commits an illegal move by kicking Robbie in the shoulder while they weren't fighting, which got him disqualified. Johnny got angry at Hawk for what he did, and was worried for Robbie. In the final round, Miguel attacks Robby's shoulder which is dislocated, thanks to Hawk, and even yanks his shoulder after losing the point. When Johnny tells him not to fight dirty, Miguel said there is nothing dirty about winning, which makes Johnny realize what he has turned Miguel into. While Miguel wins the tournament for Cobra Kai, Johnny is upset at what happened, and even apologizes to Robby for it as well. While drinking his sorrows upon looking at the winning trophy, Johnny is visited by an arriving Kreese (who has bigger plans of putting Cobra Kai up to the top by all means, much to Johnny’s distress).
Season 2[]
| “ | This was a mistake. You want Cobra Kai? It's yours. | „ |
| ~ Johnny to Kreese. |
Johnny briefly fights Kreese who tries to be let back in Cobra Kai which Johnny refuses. Johnny berates Miguel and Hawk for their dishonorable techniques at the tournament. After Kreese apologizes and gives him a fixed second place trophy, Johnny agrees to give Kreese another chance. However, this does not go well, as Kreese teaches his ways to the Cobra Kai students behind Johnny's back with actions such as vandalizing the Miyagi-Do dojo.
One day Johnny goes on a motorcycle trip with his old friends from the first Karate Kid film (except Dutch, who is mentioned to be incarcerated at a state penitentiary) and leaves Kreese with the Cobra Kai students, corrupting them with the idea of "no mercy" unbeknownst to Johnny. During the trip, Johnny's friend Tommy who is suffering from terminal cancer, dies overnight. When Johnny realizes Kreese is corrupting his students, he expels him from the Cobra Kai dojo. Johnny tries dating through a dating app, but is unsuccessful.
When he hears Miguel's mother Carmen's boyfriend talk about how he plans to dump her, Johnny beats him up and asks Carmen on a date, which she accepts. They go on a date in the penultimate episode of Season 2 where they wind up at the same table next to Daniel LaRusso and his wife Amanda which both him and Daniel are opposed to but wind up having a great time. When his son Robby and his girlfriend Samantha (Daniel's daughter) get drunk at a party, they stay the night at Johnny's house, which Daniel finds out about and they fight until being stopped by Robby and Samantha.
Johnny drops Robby off at school, where a big brawl breaks out consisting of a fight between Miguel and Robby where Miguel wins and takes Johnny's lesson of showing mercy but is kicked off a balcony by Robby. Johnny visits him at the hospital as Carmen sends him away from herself and Miguel. Johnny visits the Cobra Kai dojo to see Kreese took over Cobra Kai legally while he was away and all of his students turned on him for Kreese. He goes to the beach and heavily drinks throwing his phone in the ocean, where he misses a Facebook friend request from Ali, his high school ex-girlfriend.
Season 3[]
While Miguel is in a coma a drunken Johnny starts a fight with two men at a bar over changing the channel where he is too uncoordinated from being drunk where he loses and gets arrested. After leaving jail, he visits the hospital and is unable to see Miguel as only family, doctors, and patients are allowed in the ICU. He intentionally injures himself to get into the ICU. Meanwhile, Robby is on the run after kicking Miguel off a railing and Daniel visits Johnny at his home as they team up to look for Robby, but eventually go their separate ways after an argument where Johnny is too aggressive with a person who knew where Robby was.
Miguel wakes up from the coma, but is unable to walk. Johnny walks him through irregular methods of physical therapy to try to get him to walk again; it starts off slow, but he is eventually able to get Miguel walking again. He reconciles with Carmen in the process. He finally sees Ali's friend request and makes an over effort to make himself look good for her. He opens up a dojo called Eagle Fang with Miguel and former Cobra Kai students that were kicked out by Kreese including Mitch and Bert. He attempts to convince his other former students, including Hawk, to leave Kreese but they refuse. Ali arrives back in town and spends an entire day with Johnny where they share a brief intimate moment but is interrupted by a phone call. They go to a party together which Daniel is attending, where Ali convinces them to lay their past issues aside.
Unbeknownst to both of them, the Cobra Kai students invaded the LaRusso house and fought against Miyagi-Do's students. The Miyagi-Do students won, as Hawk decided he'd had it with being a bully (after he realized the kind of person he'd become, and also recalling that Johnny and Miguel were right and that Kreese's methods were wrong) and chose to leave Cobra Kai for good by attacking his fellow Cobra Kai's, while also reconciling with Miguel and Demetri, thus forming an alliance between Eagle Fang and Miyagi-Do.
Johnny learns of this and goes to the Cobra Kai dojo to confront Kreese, but sees he has taken Robby under his sleeve as his new student. This angers Johnny to the point where he attacks Kreese, and has the significant upper hand before being stopped by Robby. Robby unsuccessfully tries to hurt Johnny as Johnny accidentally throws him into a locker, hurting him. Kreese then has the upper hand on Johnny until Daniel arrives at the dojo and beats Kreese. Robby stays with Kreese, but the three agree to finally settle it once and for all at the upcoming All Valley Tournament.
At the Miyagi-Do dojo, Daniel and Johnny are officially allied with the students of Eagle Fang and Miyagi-Do taught from both of the sensei's.
Season 4[]
Johnny and Daniel's partnership initially doesn't go well, as Johnny's training interrupts Daniel's meditation of his students. The two's differences become more pronounced and they ultimately decide to quit their alliance. When they go to tell the kids, they discover Hawk, whom Daniel had earlier berated for burning bridges with everyone, building a sparring deck for the two dojos, convincing Daniel and Johnny to continue their alliance. In order to better work together, Daniel and Johnny decide to spend one day each training the other. Daniel puts Johnny through Miyagi's classic lessons such as painting the fence and sanding the floor, while Johnny puts Daniel through aggressive classes and forces him to singlehandedly fight a group of hockey players. The two then spend the next day training the other's students, with Johnny forcing Daniel's students to jump over to another building, with only Sam willing to do so, causing her and Johnny to grow closer.
However, Johnny begins to become jealous when he sees Miguel growing closer to Daniel and taking more inspiration from the Miyagi-Do way, such as tricking the Cobra Kai's into getting sprinklered instead of fighting them head on. Later, when Kreese arrives alongside Terry Silver, Daniel becomes paranoid that he must take over the kid's training. This, combined with his jealousy, causes Johnny to challenge Daniel to a sparring match that night, which ultimately both lose. When Hawk returns with his mohawk shaved off by Cobra Kai, the two dojos ultimately go their separate ways.
Johnny uses an old abandoned warehouse as the new Eagle Fang training ground, but is horrified when he discovers that the next All-Valley has a bracket for both girls and boys, even though he has none of the former. He sets out to recruit various girls from the school, but mostly fails, save for Devon Lee. When Miguel discovers that Johnny is dating Carmen, Johnny begins treating Miguel differently, much to Miguel's dismay. Johnny then pulls Miguel out of school and heads to the Eagle Fang dojo where he explains to him about his biological father. Shortly, Sam arrives to join them of learning the flying tornado kick
During Prom, Shannon tells Johnny that Silver gave Robby a car and money for prom, causing Johnny to set out to find Silver due to his suspicions. After finding no one at the Cobra Kai dojo, Johnny is brought to a newly purchased building (the original dojo) Silver intends to use as a new Cobra Kai dojo, and is attacked by the latter. Though Johnny makes use of Daniel's karate, he is ultimately beaten to a pulp, only spared his life when Kreese tells Silver to let him go. Later that night, Miguel, depressed from the prom's events, finds Johnny. Injured and barely conscious, Johnny tells Miguel he wants to be a better father to him, but accidentally refers to him as Robby.
At the All-Valley, Eagle Fang falls behind the other students, save for Miguel, who re-aggravates his back injury attempting to do an advanced karate move in a fight against Hawk, who has joined Miyagi-Do. Johnny encourages Miguel to keep fighting, only for Miguel to leave to go find his father instead. Daniel, seeing his daughter use Johnny's ways, then talks to Johnny to convince him to recombine, saying that he didn't realize the benefits of Eagle-Fang. Johnny apologizes and the two recombine their dojos. Despite the two's combination, Cobra Kai wins due to paying off the referee.
Later that night, Johnny has an encounter with Robby, who realizes the failure of what he has done in joining Cobra Kai, and the two embrace and finally make up. However, Johnny later discovers that Miguel has fled to Mexico to find his father.
Season 5[]
Under the guise of a family road trip, Johnny takes Robby with him on a road trip to Mexico to find Miguel, where the two bond after fighting a group of Australian surfers who stole Miguel's wallet. Eventually, after many trials and tribulations, they find a tearful Miguel and take him back to California. After returning, Carmen reveals she is pregnant with Johnny's child. Fearful he will fail the child like he did Robby, Johnny uses YouTube tutorials to attempt to become a better parent, but fails. He then attempts to become a rideshare driver, but his taste in music and poor driving lead to him getting bad reviews.
When Robby and Miguel get into another fight at a water park, Johnny attempts to get them to settle their differences at Olive Garden, and later an escape room. When a depressed Daniel comes to visit him, he comes up with the idea to have Miguel and Robby fight out their anger. The fight becomes brutal, and Miguel nearly kicks Robby off a ledge like he did to him back at the school fight, but doesn't, and the two make up, after which Johnny accidentally reveals Carmen's pregnancy. Later, Johnny and Chozen attack a new Cobra Kai sensei to defend Daniel's honor after seeing him in a depression. He later helps to encourage Daniel to regain his passion for teaching.
In an effort to discover Silver's master plan, Johnny and Daniel go to Kreese in prison, and manipulate him into revealing Silver's plan to enlist Cobra Kai in the Sekai Takai, the greatest Karate tournament in the world. After discovering this, Miyagi-Fang attempt to convince members of the Sekai Takai to enlist alongside Cobra Kai, and succeed. The next day, Carmen reveals that she is pregnant to Amanda, Daniel, and Chozen, and the five go out clubbing. However, the three men are kidnapped by Mike Barnes, a former Cobra Kai whose furniture store was burnt down by Silver. Initially believing Daniel to be responsible, Barnes enlists Chozen and Johnny's help to break into Silver's house and kill him. Johnny is forced to fight all of Silver's sensei's, and with motivation from his new baby, defeats all of them with help from Barnes at the last minute. He, Barnes, and Chozen heads to the Cobra Kai dojo. Johnny reunites with Carmen and both he and Daniel hug and express relief that Terry will be locked up with Kreese. However, Johnny and Daniel are shocked, when a police officer informs them what happened to Kreese.
Season 6[]
Part 1[]
In the aftermath of Silver's arrest, Devon joins the combined dojo, while Johnny celebrates his new baby with the rest of the family. While going to the warehouse to break bricks with Robby and Miguel, Johnny discovers his warehouse he used as a dojo has been destroyed, and when he returns to Daniel's dojo, discovers that he has had Chozen prepare a lesson instead of Johnny. After Hawk and Demetri reveal the logo for "Miyagi-Fang" to be a caricature of Mr. Miyagi, Daniel refuses, and with Chozen's support, decides to name the combined dojo simply Miyagi-Do. Johnny, not wanting to lose his legacy, challenges Chozen to a fight; whomever wins the fight names the dojo.
While training for the fight, Johnny receives a text from an unknown number, who tells him to meet at Coyote Creek, and says, "Cobra Kai Never Dies." When arriving, Johnny discovers the tester is Stingray, who has restarted Cobra Kai with kindergarteners as his students, and encourages Johnny to rejoin, proclaiming Cobra Kai as his legacy. Because of this, Johnny decides to concede the fight, deciding to become full-blown Miyagi-Do. After his ceiling suffers a leak due to clogged ceiling pipes, Johnny decides to start saving up for a new home, accompanied by Chozen in doing so. However, Johnny's brash nature causes him to embarrass himself in front of a real estate agent, Baz. However, after Chozen encourages him to be more careful, he meets an old classmate, Stevie, who offers him a house if he can get some money. Because of this, Johnny attempts to join LaRusso Auto, and is hired after successfully selling a car with Chozen's advice.
Carmen has her gender reveal at the LaRusso house. A package comes in that and Daniel and Johnny suspects that Kreese or Silver planted a bomb inside as part of their revenge plot. Shortly, Johnny arrives to the group with a pink stained shirt from the package, this reveals that Johnny and Carmen are having a girl. While training for the Sekai Taikai, Johnny discovers Tory and Sam have seemingly lost their competitive edge while fighting, and with Devon's help, schemes to get the two to hate each other again in order to regain their fighting ability. To do this, inspired by Ali's tales of gossip at slumber parties, invites Tory and Sam to a slumber party at Devon's house, where he attempts to pit the two girls against each other, down to stealing Miguel and Robby's phones and sending text messages to the girls. His attempt fails, as the girls only end up growing closer together after apologizing to each other. However, the next day, the girls regain their competitive spirit, helping Johnny out regardless.
When it turns out only 6 fighters can fight in the Sekai Taikai, Johnny and Daniel decide to invite Mike Barnes to judge the students, due to his unbiased nature. However, Johnny frequently attempts to manipulate Barnes into paying attention to Devon, ironically distracting him from her. He later visits Barnes, who tells him that Devon didn't make the cut, and goads him into a fight. After the confrontation, Barnes apologizes and attempts to be fair to Devon. With the tiebreaker race done, the 6 students are selected: Miguel, Sam, Robby, Tory, Demetri, and Devon. Johnny and Daniel thanks Mike for his help before he parts ways with them. Johnny praises Devon for earning a spot before she leaves the woods. Daniel, having discovered Johnny and Mike's brawl, confronts Johnny about Hawk not getting a spot, fighting Barnes, and going Eagle Fang to get what he wants. Daniel also warns him that they have no idea what they're facing despite having a strong team.
After the 6 fighters are picked, team captains are picked via fights; Robby v Miguel, and Tory v Sam. Johnny trains them with his training methods, doing his own way of Miyagi-Do, much to Daniel's embarrassment. Back at the Diaz apartment, Johnny tells Carmen that the training is well and that the baby is kicking. When Miguel comes home, he tells them that he got deferred for Stanford and they hug him. When Johnny was doing a driving test with a customer, he confronts Daniel for training Miguel and Sam. He tells them that they are reviewing kata and as his boss, he tells him to go back to the test drive and that Johnny already took over training the previous day. Returning to the dealership, Johnny tells everyone he is leaving to start his own dealership and asks several employees to go with him but no one, including Louie and Anoush, refuses before he is stopped by Amanda. Amanda tells Johnny that the reason why Daniel's been acting strange is because of Mr. Miyagi's old box. She tells him what was inside it.
Before the matches, Daniel tries to apologize but Johnny understands that he was doing his job. He adds that even if he's his boss at the dealership, he's his partner at the dojo. Miguel and Robby are first with Daniel as their referee and Johnny wishes both his son and step-son good luck as the two step onto the mat; their match begins and Miguel wins the first two points, but Robby mounts a comeback and beats Miguel and becomes male captain. Johnny praises his boys and comforts Miguel by saying that he was a badass out there. Johnny then referee's Sam and Tory's match. However, on the previous day before the deciding fights, Tory's mother dies, causing her to fight aggressively during their match. Daniel preemptively ends the fight, to Tory and Johnny's dismay. Tory then angrily leaves the team and presumably quits karate. Daniel and Johnny argue of Daniel's decision to end the fight with Johnny revealing that when his mom died, fighting would have helped him overcome his loss and this would've helped Tory work out her issue. Johnny, revealing that he discovered about Miyagi's box of secrets, calls him a liar, and proclaims that after the Sekai Taikai, he will leave Daniel. With Tory not going to compete with Miyagi-Do, Hawk takes her spot. Sam and Robby are now captains of Miyagi-Do.
Miyagi-Do arrives in Barcelona with Sam and Robby leading, Miguel, Hawk, Demetri, and Devon to the mat looking over at all the other rival dojo’s. While getting ready, they see the new Cobra Kai, led by Kreese and Kim Da-Eun and their fellow students, led by Kwon Jae-Sung. Shortly, Tory appears with them, revealing that she has rejoined Cobra Kai and Kreese, much to Johnny, Daniel, and their student's shock.
Part 2[]
Arriving at the hotel, Johnny and Daniel bicker of how their actions led Tory to rejoin Kreese. Johnny, Daniel, and Chozen are roommates. Johnny and Daniel attend a mixer event. While getting food, Johnny meets Sensei Wolf when they briefly argue before Daniel de-escalates the situation. Johnny looks at the weapons while showing his nunchuck skills. Kreese arrives and shows the vendor his knife. Johnny and Kreese talk about how he'll remind him about Cobra Kai's mantra and Daniel once again de-escalates. Shortly, a drunken Chozen arrives and makes a scene. He tells Daniel and Johnny about his trip to Okinawa before he smashes flowers that leads to the trio being forced to leave. On the first day of the tournament, Miyagi-Do participates in a Captain’s War fight against Cobra Kai, Iron Dragons, and the Italian dojo, Falchi Della Notte. Miyagi-Do loses the round before they witness Cobra Kai being defeated by the Iron Dragons led by Sensei Wolf.
During the next event, the Miyagi-Dos struggle in the one-on-one matches. At the hotel, Daniel tells them that they knew this isn't an easy journey. Johnny and Sensei Wolf have another encounter where he berates the Americans about their mindset. With Daniel gone to investigate Mr. Miyagi’s involvement in the tournament, Johnny takes the lead with him telling the students to use more offense. At the tournament, the first batch of Miyagi-Do students fight in the platform rounds, but they lose. Despite Miguel’s victory against the Japanese dojo, Hirobukan, Miyagi-Do is still in the bottom of the rankings. In the locker room, Johnny berates the students for not advancing with Sam getting upset at him for disrespecting Daniel’s teachings again. Later, Devon and Johnny talk where she admits that she stole Mitch’s laxatives to spike Kenny’s water to earn a spot and how she regrets it as she’s been struggling in the matches. Johnny then tells her to regain focus and not regret. He also tells her how she'll come clean about Kenny before the two shares a hug. He then leaves Daniel a voicemail wishing that he’s there for the team. Back at the arena, Johnny and Sam have a talk as he tells her that he'll do what he can to be a good leader as Daniel. In the next event, Miyagi-Do fights the Dublin Thunders with Devon’s skills improving that results with Miguel taking out their last two students. Shortly, he gets a call from Rosa who informs him about Carmen’s pregnancy situation. When Daniel returns to the hotel, Johnny tells him that he and Miguel are heading back to LA to visit Carmen in the hospital.
Johnny keeps in touch with Amanda about Carmen before telling her to find Kenny and have him take Miguel’s spot. On the flight, Johnny tries to comfort Miguel that Carmen will be fine, but he is upset about Johnny ignoring his victories at the tournament. He adds that Johnny might screw up like he did with Robby and how the tournament would’ve been if Miguel was the captain with Johnny pointing out that Robby won fair and square before a flight stewardess moves Miguel to the front. After a few attempts to reach Miguel, Johnny apologizes to him for not being supportive and explains that he didn’t think Miguel needed to be captain as the Sekai Taikai is all Robby has for his future. He also admits that he doesn't make things bad again and calls Miguel his son too. As Miguel accepts his apology, a rude passenger who's been annoying the duo, tries to pick a fight, but Miguel knocks him out. After they land back at LA, Miguel and Johnny arrives at the hospital where the nurse tells them that everything's fine. Carmen praises the two for coming back and that Rosa is there to comfort her, but she tells them to return to Barcelona so they can win.
After Johnny and Miguel pick up Kenny and arrive back at Barcelona, the trio learn from Miyagi-Do about Terry Silver’s return, who now owns the Iron Dragons dojo and he’s the one who plotted Daniel’s kidnapping the other day. Johnny tells Daniel and Chozen that they’ll take down Silver again before Daniel thanks him for the voicemail he sent him. With Miguel back, Kenny takes Devon’s spot as she spends the rest of the event standing with Johnny and the sensei’s while supporting the team. At the tournament, Daniel, Johnny, Chozen successfully messed with Kreese and Silver's minds by stealing Kreese's eunjangdo knife and replaced it with a spa ticket to frame Silver for the theft. Before Miyagi-Do’s match against Cobra Kai, Johnny and Daniel went to the locker room and watch as their students had regained focus. Miyagi-Do makes the semifinals after defeating Cobra Kai thanks to the improved teamwork of their students with Johnny and Daniel congratulating each other for defeating Kreese. Silver gives Daniel an envelope with results that includes Mr. Miyagi's Seikai Taikai match. He, Johnny, and Chozen learn that Miyagi killed his opponent which shocks Daniel.
The trio shows the results to Gunther Braun. He tells them that the list is official and adds that death was a rare occurrence. Chozen and Johnny comforts Daniel about it. Miyagi-Do then learns about Cobra Kai's reinstatement following the disqualification of the Russian dojo, Tiger Strike. At the beach, Johnny and Daniel bicker before Miguel stops them. After he reminds the two of their past success, Johnny and Daniel reconcile. They along with Miguel trains Sam and Robby for their semifinal matches while exploring different parts of Barcelona in the process. However, during the match between Robby and Iron Dragon student, Axel Kovacevic, Kwon cheap shots Robby which lead the Tiger Strike sensei’s to start an all-out brawl between the dojos. During the fight, Johnny and Daniel fights Sensei Wolf before he follows Kreese, intending to fight him. Surprising both Kreese and Silver, Johnny's saves Kreese's life and fights Silver, having the upper hand until the fight is stopped when Kwon accidentally impaled himself with Kreese’s knife while he tried to kill Axel much to everyone’s shock.
Personality[]
| “ | Look… I wasn't taught the difference between mercy and honor and I paid the price for it. If I'm extra hard on you, it's only because you have the potential to be better than I ever was. You want that, don't you? | „ |
| ~ Johnny to Miguel Diaz |
In the original movie, Johnny is the leader of the Cobra Kai and the meanest of them. He bullies and harasses Daniel due to the latter becoming friendly with Ali. He doesn't show the enemy any mercy which is what Kreese has taught him to do. In the final round of the tournament however, when Kreese tells him to sweep Daniel's leg Johnny is shocked, and he express reluctance to do so which shows that Johnny knows that things are going too far. After Daniel defeats Johnny, the latter shows respect to Daniel by handing him the trophy and saying you're alright.
| “ | Johnny: I screwed up. And I'm sorry. I made it about me. And that's not what a sensei does. I took the easy way out. I gave up. What happened here at this school... it rocked me to my core. I couldn't look myself in the eye, let alone face all of you. Hawk: I guess it makes it easier to tell yourself that. But the truth is, you bailed on us long before that fight happened. You got soft. And we paid the price. Johnny: You listen up. When you came to my dojo, you were softer than a baby's ass. I made you what you are, not Kreese. He doesn't give a sh¡t about you. About any of you. If you wanna whine about the past like a bunch of pussies, fine. We can play that game. Wanna stick with Kreese? Go ahead. Don't say I didn't warn you when your life ends up in the shitter. Or you could sack up and join my dojo. […] If you wanna save yourselves, train the right way... you better be there. |
„ |
| ~ Johnny apologizing to Hawk and his students |
34 years later, Johnny is in a bad place with no job and constantly being abused by his step-father. He is initially hostile with Miguel when he meets him. When he begins training him in karate he teaches him to be merciless. However, when Miguel's mom stops Johnny from seeing him, Johnny realizes that he really cares about him, and that Miguel is the only person that still hasn't given up on him. After more students enroll in the dojo Johnny makes several negative remarks to them which causes several of them to quit. After realizing his mistake, he stops being so harsh with them.
His relationship with his son Robby is strained due to Johnny neglecting him his whole life, which has made Robbie resentful towards his father, and bent on doing everything he can to make Johnny suffer. While Johnny has expressed desire to make amends with Robby and Robby himself did seem to want to work things out with Johnny after Shannon tells him Johnny wanted Robby to live with him, Robby goes back to disliking him after seeing Johnny hugging Miguel, though Johnny was unaware that Robby saw him. Despite their failed relationship Johnny does care about Robby, and Robby in turn does show that he does care for Johnny by accepting his apology following his loss in the all valley tournament.
After reopening the Cobra Kai dojo his rivalry with Daniel is reignited. Daniel raises his rent just so Cobra Kai gets closed down which angers him. He tries to prevent Cobra Kai from getting reinstated in the All-Valley tournament which angers him. After Daniel's cousin Louie burns his car, Johnny confronts Daniel and the two almost get into a fight. However, he two bond together on a car ride where they end up visiting Daniel's old apartment and reveal their stories before they met. However, they go back to being rivals after Johnny finds out that Robbie has been training with Daniel, though Daniel was unaware that Robbie was Johnny's son.
After his student Hawk gets disqualified in the semifinals of the tournament for making a cheap move against Robbie, Johnny gets angry at him for going far. When attacking Robbie's injured shoulder in the finals, Johnny tells him not to play dirty, and then realizes that he has gone too far. Despite Miguel winning the tournament for the Cobra Kai, Johnny expresses guilt for what has he turned Miguel into.
Johnny also acts like he is still living in the 80’s. He is big on 80’s rock music, eats heavy amounts of meat and drinks lots of alcohol, and tends to favor muscle cars with manual transmission. He is overtly naive on modern concepts like autism, gender fluidity, and the internet.
Abilities[]
- Master Martial Artist: Johnny is highly skilled in unarmed combat; specifically karate. He managed to fight with a third degree black belt almost to a draw in his first ever All-Valley tournament, and later became a two time All-Valley champion. After training with Daniel LaRusso to sharpen his defense and raise it to the same level as his offense, Johnny has become an even better fighter. This is shown how in the beginning of season 5, Johnny had to rely on Chozen Toguchi’s help to defeat just one of Terry Silver’s senseis. But in the final episode of the season, Johnny defeated all of them by himself. When fighting against Mike Barnes in season 6, Johnny utilized Miyagi-Do, and Barnes used Cobra Kai. And while Mike managed to land a few solid shots on Johnny, Johnny held the upper hand for most of the fight, and was able to defeat Mike in the end relatively easily.
- Strength: Johnny is in remarkable shape for a man his age and stature. He can punch through solid bricks, easily destroy study items with just a single kick and throw fully grown men through the air with ease.
- Bilingualism: Johnny fluently speaks English, and after he starting dating Carmen Diaz, Johnny has learned some Spanish as well. This is proven when Johnny spoke minor Spanish phrases while in Mexico, and later when Rosa Diaz said she screwed up in Spanish, and Johnny understood what she said and carried on the conversation in English.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Johnny's actor, William Zabka is notable for playing villains in various 1980s movies (with another one of his roles being Greg Tolan from the 1985 coming-of-age high-school comedy drama film Just One of The Guys). However, he played a good guy in a 1980s sitcom To Protect & Surf, as well as being featured in The Equalizer. Out of homage to his 1980s villainous roles, Zabka was cast as Rick Steelman in the 2010 film Hot Tub Time Machine.
- Edward Asner passed away at August 29, 2021. Sid Weinberg would have passed away at that time.
External Links[]
- Johnny Lawrence on the Villains Wiki
- Johnny Lawrence on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
- Johnny Lawrence on the Villainous Benchmark Wiki
- Johnny Lawrence on The Karate Kid Wiki
- Johnny Lawrence on the Shonen Rivals Wiki
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The Karate Kid (1984) | ||