The prized pupil of Cobra Kai's sensei John Kreese (Martin Kove), Johnny hated Daniel from the moment they met when LaRusso became romantically interested in Johnny's ex-girlfriend, Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue), at a beach party.
The first real fight between Johnny and Daniel after the latter's sucker punch at the beach was during the Halloween dance in The Karate Kid. Though Johnny was an undeniable bully, this altercation was started by Daniel. After pranking Johnny by pouring water over him in the bathroom, Daniel ran off, hoping to escape.
Cobra Kai started with Daniel and Johnny as enemies, but now they're friends - and their relationship is a perfect example of Mr. Miyagi's teachings. The following contains spoilers for the entirety of Cobra Kai Season 5, now streaming on Netflix.
However, one of the biggest ways Cobra Kai establishes that neither Jonny nor Danny is the villain in The Karate Kid is the reintroduction of Kreese. It made it clear that the toxicity in the Cobra Kai dojo of the 1980s came from its sensei, not its students.
However, Daniel-san turned out to be Cobra Kai's worst student — which is actually a compliment since he eventually came to his senses and realized he was being played by Cobra Kai's malevolent senseis, Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) and John Kreese (Martin Kove).
Cobra Kai Season 3 Deleted Scene: Kreese reveals why Johnny lost to Daniel in the tournament
Why do Daniel and Johnny hate each other?
Johnny mistakenly believed that Ali cheated on him with Daniel, leading the two to develop a rivalry for the next thirty-four years. Johnny made the All-Valley finals for a third time in 1984, after easily avenging his defeat in the 1981 tournament over Vidal in the semi-finals, but lost to LaRusso.
Over the summer, Daniel gets to spend more time with Mr. Miyagi as they go to Okinawa, where Daniel ends up meeting a girl named Kumiko who becomes his love interest and eventual girlfriend along with also getting into a rivalry with Chozen, who is Sato's karate student and nephew.
In the All-Valley Tournament, it was Daniel LaRusso who famously won by beating Johnny Lawrence. However, that wasn't the only competition that Daniel won. In The Karate Kid III, he went up against Mike Barnes in the All-Valley Tournament and took first place trophy home once more.
Daniel was defending both himself and Ali. The sucker punch was cheap for sure, but Johnny was the instigator. Johnny and the cobra's push Daniel off the sidewalk and down a hill on his bike because they thought it would be funny. That's OBJECTIVELY bully behaviour.
But the above-mentioned video, like many other die-hard The Karate Kid fans, points out that 'Daniel is the real bully' who was "a violent sociopath who picks every fight" and "moves to a California town and begins tormenting a local boy and his friends." The theory further claims that the tragic figure of the story is ...
Years after his initial training, Daniel married Amanda Steiner and they had two children, Samantha and Anthony. The LaRussos opened an auto-dealership called LaRusso Auto Group.
They would battle both on the mat and off—tournament rules or free-for-all—a total of five times going into Cobra Kai's wrap-up season. Overall, they have established that they are evenly matched...
The titular character, originally named Danny Webber, was renamed Daniel LaRusso to suit Macchio's Italian-American heritage. In the film, Daniel is a New Jersey kid who has just relocated to California and is suffering at the hands of a gang of boys who are part of a local karate school called Cobra Kai.
Kreese instructs his second-best student, Bobby, one of his more compassionate students and the least vicious of Daniel's tormentors, to disable Daniel with an illegal attack to the knee. Bobby reluctantly does so, severely injuring Daniel and getting himself disqualified.
Though it took them a while to get over their own differences, work together, and even learn each other's fighting styles, Daniel and Johnny are now legitimate friends who fight for one another.
Both Daniel and Johnny had their fair share of vengeful tendencies, lest fans forget when Daniel joined Cobra Kai in the third Karate Kid. Neither Johnny nor Daniel are the real bullies in The Karate Kid franchise, for they are both at fault, and neither are innocent victims.
Chozen's easy win creates little confidence in Johnny's chances, but that's largely because he and Daniel are seen as equals. But if Johnny were to somehow defeat Chozen, he'd erase that narrative, and simultaneously make a solid case for himself as Cobra Kai's best fighter.
Daniel teaches a centuries-old Miyagi-Do karate style, while Johnny's experience as a long-time practitioner gives him the edge in teaching Eagle Fang students.
They bond over their mutual amusement over how absurd it seems. Ali, Johnny, and Daniel then tell stories of high school over dinner. During this time, Ali reveals that what actually caused her breakup with Daniel was his jealousy over a college friend of hers (which Daniel mistook for a love affair).
Why does Mr Miyagi call Daniel "Daniel-san"? In the Japanese language, -san is a polite title that is used after a person's name, the equivalent of Mr., Mrs., or Miss. Daniel could just as easily refer to Mr Miyagi as "Miyagi-san".
