John Kreese

In the original film, Kreese teaches his class to be aggressive and show no mercy to opponents, which leads to his star student and son-figure Johnny Lawrence to come into conflict with Daniel LaRusso, a peaceful teenager who recently moved to the San Fernando Valley.[4] In the show, Kreese is revealed to have become homeless and unmotivated in the wake of Daniel's 2nd victory, and returns to the Valley after an older Johnny reopens the dojo and manages to win the All-Valley with his new students.Kreese is ultimately able to escape from jail despite this and retakes control of Cobra Kai after Terry is defeated by Daniel, aiming to bring the dojo to the Sekai Taikai, the world's greatest Karate tournament.However, during a mission to blow up a North Vietnamese stronghold, Silver's radio crackles loudly, but out of compassion, Kreese refuses to detonate the explosives as they would kill Ponytail, the soldier who planted them.The remaining American soldiers are held captive until 1969, when they are forced to participate in one-on-one death matches on top of a cobra and venomous snake pit arena for survival.After his military career, Kreese returned to the Valley and formed the Cobra Kai dojo—named after the snake pit in which he killed Turner—in 1975 with Silver to train local kids in Tang Soo Do under the more marketable label of "Karate".This implies that Cobra Kai is finished for good due to Barnes', Kreese's, and Silver's behavior getting the dojo banned from the tournament forever.Johnny is able to successfully convince the committee to lift the ban and allow Cobra Kai to compete again by denying any affiliation with Silver or Barnes and claiming Kreese has died.As Kreese regales the Cobra Kai students with stories of his military past, Miguel notices inconsistencies in his tales, and voices his concerns to Johnny.Johnny follows Kreese to a homeless shelter, where he admits that he flunked a psychological test when he attempted to re-enlist in the Army, and that his stories about wars after his Vietnam experience were lies.After seeing the abusive tactics used by his students during a training exercise at Coyote Creek when Miguel delivers an aggressive beating on Hawk over his vandalism of Miyagi-Do, Johnny expels Kreese from the dojo.After Miguel is severely injured during his fight with Robby at the end of the school brawl, most of the Cobra Kai students lose faith in Johnny while Kreese makes his move and takes complete ownership of the dojo.Now as its sole sensei, Kreese schemes to return Cobra Kai to the merciless organization it once was, using the remnants of Johnny's most disaffected students as his core.[12] Kreese suffers the least fallout in the aftermath of the high school brawl, only losing a couple students, including Miguel's girlfriend Tory Nichols, after being placed on probation for instigating the fight, and Aisha whose parents withdraw her from the dojo.Needing to bolster his ranks, Kreese convinces Tory to return to the dojo by offering free tuition and intimidating her seedy and unscrupulous landlord.His management of Cobra Kai sows seeds of division within his students' ranks, most notably with Hawk, who disapproves of Kreese's recruitment of his former bullies Kyler and Brucks, and later Robby after he leaves juvenile detention.When Demetri's right arm is broken by Hawk in a fight with the Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai students at the laser tag arena, a furious Amanda storms into the dojo and slaps Kreese, who retaliates by issuing a restraining order against her.During a town hall meeting to discuss whether or not to let the All Valley Tournament continue, Kreese manages to ingratiate himself to the council members by claiming to promote strength and discipline through karate, all while painting Miyagi-Do as the aggressors, a position that is backed up by the vocal protests of Amanda, Daniel and Johnny.The attack fails, as Hawk defects to the Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang students midway through the fight, and all of the Cobra Kai fighters are defeated.Kreese agrees to cease hostilities with Daniel and Johnny and settle their differences at the upcoming All Valley Tournament, with a vow to shut down Cobra Kai if he loses.Following the attack on the LaRusso residence, several Cobra Kai students quit, leading to Kreese taking in new recruits in anticipation of the tournament.Silver eventually changes his mind and agrees to rejoin Cobra Kai, but tells Kreese they must focus on the tournament and not repeat their prior mistakes.Unknown to Kreese, however, Silver had already been arrested with multiple charges both for bribing the All-Valley tournaments and Stingray confessing to the police about the truth behind the assault.[14] An often recited rumor is that the character of John Kreese was originally written for Chuck Norris, but he turned down the role because he thought it would give karate a negative image.