Best Fighters In Cobra Kai Ranked

As yet another soft reboot (when an older franchise comes back and legacy characters mentor a new generation), "Cobra Kai" has no right to be as entertaining and rewatchable as it is. But the "Karate Kid" spinoff is the real deal. William Zabka and Ralph Macchio reprise their classic roles as Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso, respectively. They're joined by multiple other classic characters and a whole slate of new ones ⁠— mainly high schoolers they're training up to fight in the next phase of the San Fernando Valley dojo wars.

It goes without saying that the series is filled with some epic brawls and displays of karate prowess from its many characters. The central theme is the conflict between strike-first aggression — as exemplified by the titular Cobra Kai dojo — and the more defensive, peaceful mindset of Daniel LaRusso's Miyagi-Do. It's a question that can only be settled by competing members of each dojo duking it out in the streets or on the mat at the All Valley Karate Tournament. So the question is, who's the best fighter on the show? Who's even in the running? We've assembled a list of the best "Cobra Kai" fighters here, worst to best.

Aisha Robinson (Nichole Brown) may not be the strongest character in "Cobra Kai," but what she lacks in experience she makes up for with pure tenacity. She's one of Johnny's first students and quickly takes the Cobra Kai ethos to heart, going far in the Season 1 All-Valley tournament despite having only practiced karate for a matter of months. She also contributes hugely to the school brawl at the end of Season 2, where she takes out several competitors while repping her dojo. For all those reasons, she easily earns her spot on this list.

Unfortunately, the competition is just too stiff to rank her any higher. Aisha has the unfortunate fate of being moved to a different school and taken out of karate classes by her parents after the brawl, which certainly puts a damper on her training. While her peers continue to spar and get stronger through the later seasons, there's no evidence that Aisha keeps pace with them. Still, when she was in her prime before the dojo war fully erupted, she was definitely a force to be reckoned with.

In the Season 2 finale, a bitter love square between Tory Nichols, Sam LaRusso, Robby Keene, and Miguel Diaz results in a massive brawl in the school hallways, involving all their Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do peers. In the end, Robby Keene kicks Miguel off a balcony, nearly killing him.

Horrified, Robby runs away, but he's eventually turned in by Daniel LaRusso and sent to juvie. It's a good thing he had such extensive karate training because another inmate there, Shawn Payne, has it out for the new guy. Clearly, Robbie is no pushover, but Shawn is able to take advantage of the "karate is for defense only" mentality that Keene picked up under LaRusso and beat him mercilessly. Not until John Kreese pays Robby a visit and convinces him to gain respect by attacking first next time does Robby get a chance to turn the tables on Shawn. Say what you will about Kreese, but he's right in this instance: taking the high road against a fighter as capable and savage as Shawn is only going to lead to disaster.

Robby earns Shawn's respect after finally battling him to a draw before being bailed out of juvie. And there's a chance we'll be seeing more of Shawn since his younger brother Kenny is now a recurring character. If he's spent the last year or so honing his chops and learning from his last fight with Robby, he may emerge as an even more brutal fighter than before.

It might seem odd to put Matt Barnes (Sean Kanan), Daniel LaRusso's main rival in "The Karate Kid Part III," so low on this list. After all, in his heyday, he was heralded as one of the best young fighters in the world, and he arguably gives Daniel his toughest challenge in all of the original film trilogy. It may well be that Mike is still at that level as an adult, but we sadly don't see enough proof in even his best moments of "Cobra Kai" Season 5 to justify ranking him over many of the other characters on this list.

In Season 5, all Mike does is briefly spar with Chozen and Daniel (not a real fight) and brute-force a couple of Terry Silver's Cobra Kai sensei into temporary defeat. Of course, he also gets bested in record time by Silver's crew, which doesn't reflect well on his overall ability.

That's nothing to be ashamed of, though. Clearly, Mike puts more time into his work and family life as an adult than into his karate. If he chose to focus back on martial arts, there's a good chance that he'd skyrocket up this list. However, as it currently stands, it would be a disservice to the characters above him here — even the younger ones — to rank him any higher.

With Miguel, Robby, and Hawk all gone from Cobra Kai by the time Season 5 starts, Kenny Payne (Dallas Dupree Young) is singled out by Terry Silver as the dojo's new star, alongside Tory Nichols. Silver recognizes the raging fire within Kenny and helps him to unleash it, albeit in some pretty manipulative ways. The results speak for themselves, though, as Kenny becomes a truly formidable fighter by the end of Season 5.

Kenny's biggest victory to date is definitely his win over Hawk — the reigning All-Valley champion — in front of the Sekai Taikai committee. While he does use a pretty underhanded technique to close the deal, there's no question that Kenny comes out swinging. Hawk clearly underestimates him, which gives Kenny an initial advantage, and he follows that strong opening up with an aggressive display of powerful moves.

After realizing Silver's villainous streak, Kenny leaves Cobra Kai, but it's unclear exactly where his path will take him next. If he swallows his anger and trains a bit in the Miyagi-Do style as well, augmenting his formidable offense with defense, he could become the strongest fighter in all of "Cobra Kai."

Like a lot of "Cobra Kai" characters, Eli Moskowitz is fueled by rage for most of the show. He is tormented at school for years due to an unsightly surgery scar on his face before "flipping the script" by getting a huge back tattoo and a towering mohawk (hence the nickname) and pouring himself into his training at Cobra Kai. Johnny Lawrence once told him that "the best defense is more offense." He takes this to heart and quickly becomes one of the most fearsome attackers on the show, capable of overwhelming larger opponents and even taking on multiple foes simultaneously with a flurry of kicks and punches, often coupled with nonviolent intimidation.

Of course, Johnny's advice works best against opponents who couldn't threaten you if they tried. For several seasons, Hawk sees defensive training as an admission of defeat and spends little time honing those skills. This means even mediocre opponents, including his old friend Demetri Alexopoulpus — hardly the best fighter in the series — have been able to beat him under the right circumstances.

But in Season 4, a newly humbled Hawk makes amends with his former victims and trains extensively with defensive expert Daniel LaRusso. Ultimately, he wins the All Valley Under 18 Karate Tournament championship and seems to have a more promising, balanced future ahead of him.

As Daniel LaRusso's daughter, Samanta LaRusso was exposed to karate far earlier than her high school peers, and it shows — muscle memory left over from childhood sparring marches with her dad undoubtedly played a large role in how quickly she became one of her generation's best fighters.

Unlike her ex Robby Keene, she never left Miyagi-Do after mastering her father's defense lessons. But she did get a chance to train with his on again, off again rival Johnny Lawrence long enough to develop some wicked attacks. With both defensive and offensive skill sets under her belt, she's able to analyze her opponent's style (a unique talent of hers) and calculate which techniques, counters, and combos are most suitable for any situation on the fly. That's a mighty foundation on which to keep developing her skills, and it's precisely why she came so close to beating Tory Nichols and taking home the prize at Season 4's All Valley Under 18 Karate Tournament girl's division.

Speaking of Tory, though, Sam isn't without her weaknesses. Her rivalry with Cobra Kai's top female fighter began when she falsely accused Tory of stealing. It continued as they fought over Robby and Miguel and escalated severely after Tory essentially tried to kill her in the finales of Seasons 2 and 3 as part of the larger rivalry between their competing dojos. Sam's hatred of Tory is understandable, but as evidenced by her All Valley defeat, it's something she needs to get a better handle on moving forward.

In "Cobra Kai" Season 5, Terry Silver brings in a whole squad of strong sensei from overseas — mean-looking fighters with loads of experience and an apparent distaste for mercy. Unfortunately, the majority of these characters don't get names, or lines, or any real development in the season. They also mostly fight as a group, which makes them even harder to distinguish. Still, it's hard to leave them out in a discussion of the show's strongest fighters, so for the purposes of this list, we're grouping them all together.

While they might not be as strong one-on-one as the main sensei in "Cobra Kai," Silver's henchmen are undeniably talented. They go toe-to-toe with Johnny and Chozen multiple times, and while they do have the numbers advantage in the Season 5 finale fight, they still show a lot of impressive skill. Silver only works with the best, and he gets a lot of bang for his substantial buck. Still, these nameless characters can't really compete with the big-time players on the show.

Cobra Kai founder John Kreese's biggest problem is his inability to distinguish between the kill-or-be-killed conditions of the Vietnam War and his job as the sensei of an after-school, strip mall karate program. He inherited an immature dojo rivalry and escalated it to the point of open warfare. His students, brainwashed by his "Strike hard, strike first, no mercy" mantra and equipped with proto black ops skills, are now child soldiers committing acts of terrorism across the valley, including Hawk snapping Demitri's arm at the arcade and destructive invasions of the Miyagi-Do dojo and the LaRusso home. The guy should be in prison, yet inexplicably sees his influence as positive.

This twisted mentality obviously manifests in his fighting style. He's well past his prime, as evidenced by defeats against Lawrence and LaRusso, but a special ops background and a lifetime of fighting for his life make Kreese one of the show's most ruthless and cunning combatants. He's more adept at using his environment to his advantage than anyone else in the show, even when it exceeds the limits of karate. He'll use weapons against unarmed opponents and sucker punch foes when their guard is down. Kreese sees ruthlessness as a virtue and honor as foolishness in a cold, cruel world. What he cannot seem to grasp is that its own vicious behavior that's made him so many enemies in the first place. But there's no denying the man is exceedingly dangerous, even in his later years.

Daniel LaRusso might be a bit pretentious with his whole "wise sage" act, especially since he's as prone to violence and petty revenge against high school rivals as anyone he likes to think he's better than. But the OG "Karate kid" sure knows his stuff. Now an adult, LaRusso has mastered Mr. Miyagi's defense-first style of karate and wants to share his wisdom with a new generation to combat the violent threat of a resurgent Cobra Kai.

LaRusso's mastery of mindful balance makes him hard to outmaneuver or sneak up on and allows him to perceive — and therefore control — nearly everything that's happening around him. And although his style focuses on defense and counterattacks, he's perfectly capable of smashing an opponent in combat. He's not as strong or as ruthless as Johnny Lawrence or John Kreese, but his style doesn't require him to be. After all, his precision and disciplined mastery of his combat techniques make him a superior fighter all the same.

On multiple occasions throughout the show, LaRusso takes on and beats multiple foes at once, seemingly without breaking a sweat or sustaining much damage at all. Being humble enough to learn is a powerful asset too. Daniel's training with both Johnny Lawrence and Chozen Toguchi teaches him some dangerous new offensive skills, and the ending of Season 4 sets up a further partnership between all three. It'll be interesting to see how LaRusso grows as a fighter in Season 5.

In "The Karate Kid Part II," Daniel LaRusso joins Mr. Miyagi on a trip to his home island of Okinawa, Japan. There, he encounters Chozen Toguchi — a violent, ruthless foe trained by a student of Mr. Miyagi's father who made the first movie's Cobra Kais look like the children they were. Daniel managed to beat Chozen only with extreme effort, additional training from Mr. Miyagi, and, no doubt, a healthy dose of plot armor.

Decades passed before the two ran into each other again during Daniel's Season 3 trip to Okinawa. Chozen agrees to spar with his old foe, and we learn that while LaRusso spent the years since their last encounter starting a business and raising a family, Chozen had done little else but pour himself into Miyagi-Do karate, learning techniques that might've eluded even Mr. Miyagi himself. He dominates Daniel using precision strikes to the joints that render entire limbs — and thus the fighter who owns them — temporarily immobile. Daniel later uses this tactic against Kreese to great effect.

It's doubtful this is the only special technique Chozen has mastered during his years of intensive karate training. Now that he's returned to help LaRusso take down Terry Silver's Cobra Kai, we're excited to see what other ancient ninja tactics this peerless martial arts master has up his sleeve.