“No smirk, just a simple smile”: Cobra Kai Star Ralph Macchio Had Real-Life Feud With William Zabka After Actor Actually Knocked Out the Karate Kid in Key Scene

Ralph Macchio and William Zabka? They are a part of one of the underrated rivalries in cinema history. Today’s audiences already know about Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader, as well as Professor X and Magneto. But Macchio and Zabka’s iconic rivalry has cemented itself in pop culture after being ignored for decades.

These two feuding men probably won’t make the top 10 lists soon. But unlike others on this list, they harbor a secret. Turns out, like their onscreen counterparts, Macchio and Zabka had a feud going on between them as well. Fans of The Karate Kid and Cobra Kai will surely raise their eyebrows after knowing this.

The Karate Kid On-Screen Rivals Continued Their Feud In Real-Life As Well

The 1984 film, The Karate Kid, was made on a modest budget of $8 million, but it ended up grossing more than $130 million worldwide. Thus, a global phenomenon and franchise was born. As a result, Ralph Macchio as Daniel LaRusso and William Zabka as Johnny Lawrence tasted stardom for the first time. But they still had to wait till 2018’s Cobra Kai to flesh out their on-screen rivalry better.

However, it looks like all this time there was an off-screen competitiveness and struggle brewing between the two. In an interview with The Guardian, Ralph Macchio said that during the shooting of the Halloween fight, he ended up getting knocked out by Zabka for real. This ramped up the on-screen competitive intensity between the two. However, the two of them didn’t meet again till 2005.

The incident that brought them together was tragic- Pat Morita’s (Mr. Miyagi’s) funeral. In his memoir, Waxing On: The Karate Kid and Me, Macchio mentioned regarding Zabka, “He caught my eye. No smirk, just a simple smile.” But the two of them have never been anything but cordial to each other during press conferences and publicity events. Zabka even said that they are essentially in the same life and career boat.

Ralph Macchio And William Zabka Remained Cordial Inspite Of Off-Screen Contention

William Zabka, in an interview with People magazine, ahead of Cobra Kai season 5, implied that he and Ralph Macchio were never the best of friends off the sets of The Karate Kid. But they have always found themselves in the same area or space over the years by coincidence or some cosmic force. He explained:

“A director picked both of us out [of] the universe and threw us in the same canvas. And then the movie exploded and turned into a classic. Over the years, Ralph and I had seen each other, we’d bumped into each other at different festivals and this and that, [a] memorial for Pat Morita.”

But the two of them were able to reunite and presumably settle their differences during the duration of Cobra Kai. Season 6 will mark the end of the show and while no premiere date has been announced yet, it’s expected to begin streaming in late 2023.