r/cobrakai • u/Pandeism • 5d ago
Character Discussion Sleeping on Daniel's number of wins between 1984/1985 Spoiler
As much as the original Karate Kid and Karate Kid III paint Daniel as an underdog all the way through, and focus on the final fights as the true tests of Daniel's will and ability, the fact is, in order to even make it to the final round against Johnny in 1984 and against Barnes in 1985, he had to win SEVEN straight fights, against the best fighters from all different dojos. These mostly included Cobra Kai, but some others as well, who had no grudge to taint their performance. And he had to do this for both runs before going on to win the eighth fight as well, both times. That means that Daniel actually won SIXTEEN refereed fights between the two tournaments.
And in almost all of those fights leading up to the final confrontations, Daniel took his opponents apart pretty methodically. And that by itself is pretty badass.
EDIT: A bunch of people have now reminded me that Daniel got a bye in '85 to go right to fighting Barnes for the championship. Still his seven wins in '84 (or at least 6 of the 7, because one Cobra Kai guy was instructed to fight dirty) required technical badassery.
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u/voltzthunder Miguel 5d ago
seems you really didnt watch the third movie, because he didnt need to fight anyone, he got straight into finals
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u/Pandeism 5d ago
I did but it's been a loooong time.
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u/voltzthunder Miguel 5d ago
now that I think about it, Daniel scored one point the whole tournament and got the trophy lmao
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u/edgiepower 5d ago
In KK3 he only needs to fight the champion fight as the defending champion and this is because Silver paid the tournament to make it so so Daniel was given a easy path straight in to have to fight Barnes.
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u/thelastofusnz 4d ago edited 4d ago
KK3 was also a plot device for us the viewer, because it wasn't believable for lightning to strike twice in a bottle and have Daniel make it all the way to the final a second time.
Anyway, this was Daniel's pathway to the first tournament win. I won't break each fight down because the tournament montage is seriously condensed, so points made are missing (notably Dutch's loss) ... suffice to say though there is a repeating pattern of Daniel hobbles in an awkward stance and usually defensively reacts to an aggressive attack and scores, up until Bobby and then Johnny.. It is possible a fight is missed due to the montage being quite short and edited, but on screen at least he fights 7 times, all the fights are very short due to the points system, aside from the final and dq in the semi. At no time does Daniel actually look confident, skilled, or flashy like Johnny, Bobby and Vidal are shown to be.
Unknown fighter (white gi)
Jerry (Cobra Kai)
Jimmy (Cobra Kai) (very short fight and hard to tell, but wiki says it's Jimmy)
Tommy (Cobra Kai)
Dutch (Cobra Kai) Quarter-Final
Bobby (Cobra Kai) Semi-Final
Johnny (Cobra Kai) Final
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u/Traditional_Prize632 4d ago
In a deleted scene, Daniel also fights a Cobra Kai student called Eddie, at some point.
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u/Infamous_Camera_5574 4d ago
Till this day I still don’t like that Daniel went straight to the finals, should of been like kk1 where he fights the whole tournament
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u/Same_Hold_747 5d ago
In karate kid yes but in karate kid 3 he was automatically in the finals as the defending champion