Cobra Kai season 3 promises a major showdown at season 4’s All-Valley Karate Tournament, but what if the titular dojo doesn’t make it to the finals? The Karate Kid franchise had several climaxes take place at the tournament, but that doesn’t mean Cobra Kai season 4 will follow that trend. In fact, there are several ways the core conflicts could be resolved without even letting Kreese’s dojo make it to the last round of the All-Valley.
Since season 1’s All-Valley competition, most of Cobra Kai’s big showdowns have taken place off the tournament mat. School brawls, home break-ins, and near-fatal dojo confrontations have become the norm, causing Daniel LaRusso’s Miyagi-Do Karate and Johnny Lawrence’s Eagle Fang dojos to join forces against John Kreese’s Cobra Kai. Beyond the dojo war itself, there are a number of more personal grudges waiting to be resolved – primarily between Tory Nichols and Sam LaRusso, and Roby Keene and Miguel Diaz.
The most likely possibility is that these rivalries will be settled at the next All-Valley, with either a Robby/Miguel rematch or a Sam/Tory showdown in the finals. However, given the nature of Cobra Kai’s major conflicts, it's entirely possible that they’ll come to a head before the tournament’s finale. Robby has been a sympathetic character throughout the whole show, and Johnny and Daniel will surely try to convince him of Kreese’s bad intentions before the tournament comes around. Tory also has plenty of justification for falling down the wrong path, which could be the foundation for her own eventual redemption arc.
It’s pretty clear that Robby and Tory are Kreese’s only shot at winning the All-Valley – at least, of the students he currently has. If even one of them leaves the Cobra Kai dojo before the tournament, realizing how abusive Kreese actually is, that would stack the odds even higher against Cobra Kai. Miguel, Tory, Hawk, Sam and Robby are all more than capable of winning the All-Valley Tournament, and one of the two Cobra Kai students on that list could easily depart beforehand. Even if both Robby and Tory stick with Kreese, they might not make it to the finals: They’ll have a gauntlet to fight through on the way there, and the team-up between Johnny and Daniel is only going to make their students stronger. Plus, it wouldn’t be out of the question for some of the show’s bigger storylines to resolve elsewhere. Robby and Miguel could easily find a venue for their next fight before the tournament even begins, which would make a rematch between them in the finals anticlimactic and a lot less likely.
Kreese’s bet with Johnny and Daniel would effectively be lost if his dojo didn’t even make the finals, though it seems likely he wouldn’t walk away without a definitive loss on his hands (or maybe even then). It would certainly be a blow to the dojo’s reputation, at the very least, and a vote of confidence in Johnny and Daniel’s. Knowing what Kreese has done in the past, he’d probably resort to some pretty underhanded tactics if his students didn’t make the finals – possibly even harming one of the other competitors to open up a spot.
If Cobra Kai isn’t represented in the All-Valley finals, there are still a lot of really compelling matches that could fill that slot. A friendly, honorable duel between Miguel and Hawk, for instance, could be a great chance to show how both characters have grown and developed as practitioners of karate. Or maybe a full-on fight between Sam and Miguel could finally happen. Whatever the All-Valley holds, it’s sure to be a high point in Cobra Kai season 4.