The Alternate Cobra Kai Season 4 Scene You'll Never Get To See
"Cobra Kai" fans are loving the show's recently-released fourth season. Packed with emotional punches, wonderful action scenes, and new developments for nearly all of its major characters, Season 4 brings together Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) as co-sensei of the Miyagi-do karate dojo. Trying to combine the teachings of their old mentors to prep their students for the upcoming All Valley Karate Tournament — and hopefully take down Cobra Kai once and for all — Daniel and Johnny run into a lot of bumps in the road as they try to get along.
Two of those bumps are Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) and John Kreese (Martin Kove), a pair of unwelcome familiar faces from Johnny and Daniel's shared past. Though both Johnny and Daniel clash with Silver and Kreese during the season's run, there's a surprising scene that was supposed to take place between Johnny and Kreese which never made it to air.
Martin Kove and William Zabka tried to rewrite their scene in Episode 10
Per a Collider interview with William Zabka and previous comments made by Martin Kove, both actors had "issues" with a scene that takes place between Kreese and Johnny at the All Valley Karate Tournament during the Season 4 finale. Both actors wanted to get more out of their moment together. "Because there's not so many of those moments for us throughout the season, we just wanted it to be right for both of us. We had so much more we wanted to say to each other," Zabka said. So the actors "massaged" the moment into shape, adding on to what was already in the script. Submitting their notes to the writers, both men were ultimately told that a decision had been made to "just keep it the same," per comments Kove made during a Planet Comicon Kansas City panel in 2021 (via YouTube).
In the version of the scene shown on the show, Kreese and Johnny hash out their pasts, with Kreese ultimately offering Johnny a position at Cobra Kai that would put him in line to lead the dojo, but Lawrence turns it down.
Fans will never see the actor's version of the scene, but at least the episode seems to have satisfied faithful "Cobra Kai" fans.