Johnny Lawrence

"You couldn't leave well enough alone, could you, little twerp? No, you had to push it. Well, now you're gonna pay!"

- Johnny Lawrence to Daniel LaRusso.

John "Johnny" Lawrence is a recurring character of The Karate Kid series. He serves as the secondary antagonist of the 1984 film The Karate Kid, and the anti-heroic protagonist of the YouTube Red TV series Cobra Kai.

He is portrayed by William Zabka.

The Karate Kid
Johnny was the best student of John Kreese's Cobra Kai Dojo and the leader of the gang of bullies representing the dojo, as well as the ex-boyfriend of Ali Mills.

Throughout the film, Johnny torments and bullies the protagonist Daniel LaRusso. But when Kreese told Johnny to "sweep the leg" in order to beat Daniel at the All-Valley Karate Tournament, Johnny gives Kreese a frightened glance (while also possibly realizing that Kreese had gone too far).

After he lost to Daniel, Johnny shows respect to Daniel and gives him the first-place trophy. With that, he and Daniel patch things up and become friends.

The Karate Kid Part II
At the beginning of the second film, while Johnny was perfectly fine with winning second-place, Kreese was not as he broke the trophy in two after Johnny called him a sore loser. After an argument between Kreese and Johnny (which Daniel and Miyagi take notice of), Kreese violently berates Johnny, but Miyagi stops him. After that, Johnny and the rest of the Cobra Kai students left Kreese in the parking lot, now seeing Kreese for the kind of man he really was.

The Karate Kid Part III
Johnny appears in a montage in the beginning of the movie. It can be implied that Johnny and his friends left Cobra Kai, following Kreese's actions in the beginning of The Karate Kid Part II, because in the present day, Kreese does not have any students left.

Cobra Kai
34 years after losing the tournament, Johnny is down on luck. When he meets his new neighbor Miguel he is hostile with him. He later beats up a group of bullies who were harassing Miguel who asks him to teach him karate. At first, Johnny refuses at first. However, he later changes his mind and decides to train him. He reopens the Cobrai Kai dojo and managed to have it reinstated, which causes his rivalry with Daniel to get reignited. He later gets more students at the Cobra Kai thanks to Miguel. He teaches all of them to strike first, and act merciless to their opponents which is what Kreese taught him. While cobra Kai was initally banned from the all valley tournament due to the actions of Kreese, Terry Silver and Mike Barnes in 1985 (Karate Kid 3) Johnny convinces the commitee to reinstate Cobra Kai.

During the tournament, his students Miguel and Eli (Hawk) make it to the semifinals, but Johnny's son Robbie also makes it to the semifinals. During the semifinals Hawk commits an illegal move by kicking Robbie in the shoulder  while they were not fighting which got him disqualifed. Johnny got angry at Hawk for what he did and was worried for Robbie. In the final round Miguel attacks Robbies shoulder which is disslocated thanks to hawk, and even yanks his shoulder after losing the point. When Johnny tells him not to fight dirty Miguel said there is nothing dirty about winning which makes Johnny realize what he has turned Miguel into. While Miguel wins the tournament for Cobra Kai, Johnny is upset oat what happened, and even apologizes to Robby for it as well.

While drinking his sorrows upon looking at the winning trophy, Johnny is visited by an arriving Kreese (who has bigger plans of putting Cobra Kai up to the top by all means, much to Johnny’s distress).

Karate Kid
Johnny is the leader of the Cobra Kai and the meanest of them. He bullies and harasses Daniel due to the latter becoming friendly with Ali. He does not show the enemy any mercy which is what Kreese has taught him to do. In the final round of the tournament however, when Kreese tells him to sweep Daniel's leg Johnny is shocked, and he express reluctance to do so which shows that Johnny knows that things are going too far. After Daniel defeats Johnny, the latter shows respect to Daniel by handing him the trophy and saying you're alright.

Season 1
34 years after his defeat (Cobra Kai) Johnny is still bitter. After he begins training his neighbor Miguel he teaches him to be merciless. Over the course of the first season of Cobra Kai he begins to care for Miguel and realize that he is the only person that has not given up on him.

His relationship with his son Robby is strained due to Johnny neglecting him his whole life, which has made Robbie resentful towards his father, and bent on doing everything he can to make Johnny suffer. While Johnny has expressed desire to make amends with Robby and Robby himself did seem to want to work things out with Johnny after Shannon tells him Johnny wanted Robby to live with him, Robby goes back to disliking him after seeing Johnny hugging Miguel, though Johnny was unaware that Robby saw him. Despite their failed relationship Johnny does care about Robby, and Robby in turn does show that he does care for Johnny by accepting his apology following his loss in the all valley tournament.

In the 6th episode of the first season of The Cobra Kai it is revealed that when Johnny was a young kid he was nice and caring but was often bullied and ridiculed by his stepfather Sid. In the ninth episode of the first season of The Cobra Kai Johhny tells Daniel that he was often bullied by Sid. It is possible that Sid's poor treatment played a role in Johnny becoming an aggressive bully.

Following the Cobra Kai winning the All Valley tournament, Johnny begins to feel guilty that his karate lessons have turned Miguel into a vicious and dirty fighter.

Trivia

 * Johnny's actor, William Zabka is notable for playing villains in various 1980s movies (with another one of his roles being Greg Tolan from the 1985 coming-of-age high-school comedy drama film Just One of The Guys). However, he played a good guy in a 1980s sitcom To Protect & Surf, as well as being featured in The Equalizer. Out of homage to his 1980s villainous roles, Zabka was cast as Rick Steelman in the 2010 film Hot Tub Time Machine.
 * Johnny Lawrence returns in Cobra Kai and resurrect Cobra Kai from his former sensei. He is an anti-hero and protagonist of the series. Ironically, Johnny seems to have change to be less villainous while Daniel becomes more of a villain due to his past grudge against Johnny and Cobra Kai as Johnny and his gang nearly killed him in the past for dousing one of them. Except Daniel was not the villain in the series. He still teaching the same methods that made him and Daniel's enemies that made him a villian in the series that Daniel was trying to prevent. He even turned Miguel who was just like Daniel into bigger villain like Johnny.

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Johnny Lawrence