“Cobra Kai” Season 6, Part 1 kicks off in a fairly peaceful fashion. Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) is out of the picture, John Kreese (Martin Kove) is on the run, and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) are closer than ever — though they still can’t help bickering over their respective karate philosophies. The season premiere does tease one major confrontation, and it’s one that fans have been wanting to see for some time. However, the much-advertised fight between Johnny and Chozen Toguchi (Yuji Okumoto) doesn’t actually happen, no matter what the “Cobra Kai” Season 6 trailer would have you believe.
During the debate about renaming the freshly-combined Eagle Fang and Miyagi-Do dojos, Johnny and Chozen grow increasingly hostile toward each other, and agree to fight for the right to pick the name. This is great news for viewers who have been ranking the best fighters on “Cobra Kai,” seeing as the “Karate Kid” and “Karate Kid Part II” antagonists have never had a match. Unfortunately, this continues to be the case after the episode.
While Johnny and Chozen seem determined to fight even after the matter is already settled, they ultimately treat the whole thing as a fun little sparring match that immediately devolves into a joke at Daniel’s expense, as both men agree to drop the fight and start attacking him instead. Granted, this is a great way to illustrate the dissipating tensions between the two hot-headed fighters. Still, the way the episode pulls the rug out from under viewers might disappoint a lot of people who wanted to see a genuine showdown between the pair.
Will Chozen and Johnny ever fight for real?
Due to his comparatively late arrival on the series, Chozen remains the great unfought for multiple major characters. He’s the last remaining Miyagi-Do-affiliated trainer who has yet to fight Kreese, but seeing as the two have barely any relationship in the franchise, it would be far more interesting to see how he would fare against Johnny. After all, the two were major villains in the original Karate Kid movies. Besides, Chozen’s “Cobra Kai” fighting style and training are also vastly different from Johnny’s brand of karate, which would undoubtedly make the battle more entertaining.
“Cobra Kai” Season 5 subverts expectations of animosity between Chozen and Johnny in a fun way by having the two actually bond over their similar history with Daniel, and even fight side-by-side. However, it would be downright strange if the two didn’t face off for real at some point down the line. After all, “Cobra Kai” is in the nostalgia and wish fulfillment business, and since “Peacetime in the Valley” gleefully teases the match for most of its runtime before pumping the brakes after a few half-hearted blows and blocks, fans may get to see the much-teased Johnny-Chozen showdown happen before the series is over.
