The Cobra Kai Season 3 Fight That Required An Extra Week Of Training

Netflix's Cobra Kai is a show that's equally skilled at tackling comedy and serious issues. As a part of The Karate Kid franchise, it's also particularly good at repeatedly spin-kicking opponents, old school style. The series' fight scenes are just as epic as you'd assume if you're a fan of the original film series. Who could forget the time Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) saved Miguel Diaz (Xolo Maridueña) from Kyler (Joe Seo) and his gang at the mall? Or when Miguel himself battled the same bullies at the school cafeteria? Or the time Miguel and Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan) faced off in the All Valley karate tournament? Or, for that matter, their significantly more fateful battle at the ending of Cobra Kai season 2? Cobra Kai low key has some of the best action sequences — and the best martial arts — on television.

Yes, Cobra Kai might be many things, but the show is fully aware that the occasional cool karate fight is its meat and mead — and by the looks of it, the fight scenes are only going to get more awesome and complicated when Cobra Kai season 3 arrives in January 2021. In fact, one Cobra Kai actor has revealed that one particular season 3 fight was so hard that it required an extra week of training. 

The events of Cobra Kai season 3 will send Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) back to Okinawa, which means that he'll run into some old friends and enemies from The Karate Kid Part II. One of these returning characters is his deadly opponent Chozen Toguchi (Yuji Okumoto), which can only mean one thing — a rematch of their "fight to the death" from the three-decade-old movie.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Okumoto confirmed that the characters will indeed spend a significant portion of their shared screen time at each other's throats. What's more, it appears that things will be so complex that Macchio wanted to get together with Okumoto a week before the shooting began, just so they could really get on top of their dueling game. 

"When we initially [reunited with Macchio] it was via a phone call, and he wanted the two of us to get together to rehearse the fight scene together," Okumoto revealed. "Because we had probably four significant fight scenes in that episode, so he wanted to bring me out about a week early to Atlanta to go over and rehearse the fights — which at my age, that's a blessing." In fact, Okumoto even pulled his hamstring while shooting a scene, but he insisted in finishing the fight anyway.   

Cobra Kai season 3 arrives on Netflix in January 2021.