Who Wins The Sekai Taikai Tournament In Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 3?

This article contains spoilers for “Cobra Kai” Season 6 Part 3.

After seven years, six seasons, and two streaming platforms (three if you count YouTube Red and YouTube Premium as separate), “Cobra Kai” has finally come to an end. And as you might expect from a show all about karate tournaments, the series sends things off with a trio of climactic fights at the Sekai Taikai world championship. “Cobra Kai” Season 6 Part 3 isn’t as outlandish as some other points in the show, but it gives most of the major characters good closure and some significant victories, be they on the mat or off it.

After the bloody and abrupt interruption of the tournament in Season 6 Part 2, Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) convinces the other senseis to resume competition for the final rounds by moving the event from Barcelona to the San Fernando Valley. After Sam LaRusso (Mary Mouser) decides not to return to the tournament, Tory Nichols (Peyton List) is automatically bumped to the girls’ final against Zara Malik (Rayna Valladingham). And while it looked for a while like Miguel Diaz (Xolo Maridueña) might not get a big climactic moment on the mat, he steps up in his old Cobra Kai gi when Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan) goes down hard against Axel Kovačević (Patrick Luwis).

While you might think that an 18-and-under karate tournament would be decided by characters aged 18 and younger, this is “Cobra Kai,” so things don’t go quite so simply. Let’s break down who wins the Sekai Taikai and where the characters each land at the end of “Cobra Kai” Season 6.

With Sam choosing to bow out early, along with the entirety of Miyagi-Do, Tory gets bumped straight to the Sekai Taikai girls’ finals. Throughout the show, her tenacity and resolve have been her strongest tools, but Tory second-guesses herself when it comes to facing Zara. The karate influencer “Cobra Kai” villain gets in Tory’s head early and hits her with a string of tough blows, further shaking her confidence. But in the timeout, Robby rushes up just to tell Tory that he loves her, and as all movie-watchers know, anything is possible with the power of love.

Reminded of her she is, Tory goes toe-to-toe with Zara, scoring a knockdown and a brutal knockout blow that takes a few of Zara’s teeth with it. Tory is named the world champion, completing her arc that began all the way back in Season 2. It’s a satisfying win for a character who’s had to fight for everything her whole life, and it feels right that she ends up with the title when all is said and done.

Tory and Robby get an even happier ending in the final episode, where it’s revealed that they both sign lucrative sponsorship deals to travel the world and compete together. Is it a bit of a fairy tale karate ending? Yes, but again, this is “Cobra Kai,” and it’s good to see those two wild kids finally making it work.

Thanks to Tory’s impressive performance against Zara, Cobra Kai has a real chance at claiming the top dojo spot going into the boys’ final. The total score prior to the match is 165 for the Iron Dragons and 155 for Cobra Kai, and Miguel does well in the first round against the much larger Axel Kovačević. His opponent comes back strong and angry in round 2, however, evening the match score at 5 to 5 before landing a crushing knockdown for another 10.

Down 20 in the total dojo score, it doesn’t look good for Cobra Kai. But if there’s one thing Miguel has been known for the whole series, it’s coming back from long odds and delivering huge underdog victories. That is the “Karate Kid” way, after all, and don’t let the ensemble fool you, he is still the Karate Kid of “Cobra Kai.”

After a rousing pep talk from Sensei Johnny (William Zabka), Miguel dons his mentor’s headband and reenters the ring, fueled by the power of flashbacks. The final round choreography features some fun references to Miguel’s various battles throughout the series, drawing his arc to a close in stylish fashion. And though he finishes the round with a knockdown, that point burst only manages to tie the total dojo scores. Miguel is named a world champion alongside Tory, but the dojo championship remains unresolved, which leads to a tiebreaker you could only imagine in the most soapy of TV shows: a duel between the senseis.

Yes, the final karate fight of “Cobra Kai” isn’t about Miguel, Robby, Tory, or Sam. It’s all about Johnny, whose final bout pits him against the Iron Dragons’ fearsome Sensei Wolf (Lewis Tan). How and why the biggest karate tournament in the world decided that this was the right way to settle ties is one of those grand Hollywood mysteries. It’s a scheduling nightmare, and one that would seem to take all the focus away from the young combatants whom the tournament is supposedly for. But never mind all that, because Johnny is the real protagonist of the show, and that means he gets the final battle, even if it doesn’t make much sense.

After some soul-searching, a “Rocky” training montage with Sensei Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), and some even more explicit “Rocky” references, Johnny steps back onto the mat and faces Wolf. The fight itself is a bit less climactic than the boys’ and girls’ finals, likely because Lewis Tan is one of the most talented martial artist actors working today, and William Zabka, for all his charisma and talent, is nearly 60. The show attempts to evoke the “less experienced fighter with more heart defeats the egotistical veteran” dynamic from the original “Karate Kid,” with Johnny now in the role of the hero, and it mostly works. Still, the underdog victory is admittedly less believable when it involves two grown men.

Nevertheless, Johnny comes back with a clutch win after going down 2-0 to start, choosing patience over aggression to earn the deciding point. Cobra Kai wins the Sekai Taikai, and Johnny and Daniel lift the tournament trophy together, even though one of them isn’t even a sensei at that dojo and neither of them are the kids who actually competed. A strange ending to a strange show, to be sure, but one that’s hard to be mad at. There’s nothing wrong with giving every main character their moment in the sun, and it’s nice to see Cobra Kai walk off the mat with a world title.

“Cobra Kai” is now streaming in its entirety on Netflix.