After Cobra Kai’s Final Season, One Villain Will Never Get Their “Johnny Lawrence” Moment

Cobra Kai season 6 included several permanent exits that made it impossible for certain characters to return, which means one figure in particular will never get the same shot at redemption as William Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence. Although Cobra Kai’s big finale was largely a positive affair, the Karate Kid sequel show’s final run also featured a few macabre scenes. Certain Cobra Kai characters got the ride off into the sunset one might expect, but others were disposed of in shockingly brutal fashion.

Even though Cobra Kai is now over, Karate Kid: Legends will continue the saga. Although Legends is largely unrelated to the events of Cobra Kai, the movie at least shows an intent to not let the franchise end. As such, I expect the Karate Kid movies and Cobra Kai to continue being fleshed out in future projects. It remains unclear just how heavily Cobra Kai will be acknowledged in the franchise’s probable continuation beyond Legends, but the Netflix sequel show has definitively written off one possibility.

Cobra Kai’s Kwon Jae-Sung Was A Brilliant Johnny Lawrence Replacement

Johnny begins Cobra Kai as a beaten-down bad guy, haunted by his defeat to Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso at the end of 1984’s The Karate Kid. Throughout the movie that kickstarted the franchise, Zabka’s character is one of the main antagonists. He’s the top dog in the Cobra Kai dojo, and continuously harasses and bullies Daniel. In short, he’s just generally not a very nice person. While Cobra Kai had other villains during its six-season run, Brandon H. Lee’s Kwon Jae-Sung was the most like-for-like replacement for Johnny in his prime.

It’s tough to believe Johnny’s younger years weren’t the template for Kwon.

There’s very little to find appealing about Kwon’s personality, which is kind of the point. He treats pretty much everyone with either apathy or disrespect, which makes him the perfect villain. Comparing him to Johnny, Lee’s character is probably more textbook evil than Johnny was, as at least Daniel’s rival-turned-friend had the honor to tell Macchio’s character: “You’re alright, LaRusso!” after their fight in the 1984 All Valley Tournament. That being said, it’s tough to believe Johnny’s younger years weren’t the template for Kwon.

Kwon’s Death In Cobra Kai’s Sekai Taikai Brawl Means He’ll Only Ever Be Remembered As A Villain

Kwon can be easily seen thriving in the chaos that breaks out at the Sekai Taikai at the end of Cobra Kai season 6, part 2. At this point in the story, he’s still a relatively new character. Cobra Kai hasn’t had the chance to start him down the path of redemption that Johnny only found many decades after his 1984 All Valley defeat. So, when Kwon falls fatally on the very blade with which he was planning to attack Axel Kovačević (Patrick Luwis), the audience only ever knows him as the deeply unlikable bad guy he was introduced as.

Kwon’s death locks in his personality forever, as a comeback decades later is now off the table. His brashness and cockiness would likely have decreased over time, but his self-inflicted passing served only as a reminder of how damaging hubris and unrestrained competitiveness can be in a violent endeavor like karate. Rather than ever getting the chance to apologize or admit he was often in the wrong, Kwon has been immortalized as the exact opposite of what Johnny eventually became – but also a concentrated version of a younger iteration of Zabka’s character.

Kwon’s Final Opponent Had The Redemption Arc I Expected Kwon Himself To Have

Because so many Karate Kid and Cobra Kai villains often exist in shades of gray and states of moral flux, I found it surprising that Kwon was just pure evil for the entirety of his arc. I expected some glimmer of regret or desire to change to arrive at some point, but it never got the chance. Interestingly, another Cobra Kai season 6 bad guy did go through this compelling transformation – and it was the character Kwon was fighting when he died – Axel.

Although Axel’s defeat of Kwon was never intended to end in a fatality, it helped solidify Axel’s status as a character between camps of good and bad. Cobra Kai did for Axel what it failed to achieve for Kwon and gave me a reason to feel sorry for Luwis’ character. I understood his ruthlessness wasn’t entirely his own, as he was emotionally and physically abused by Sensei Wolf (Lewis Tan). The show nurtured this seed and let it grow into Axel later standing up to his sensei, becoming the improved figure that Cobra Kai stopped Kwon from becoming.