Thirty-four years after his defeat in the 1984 All-Valley Karate Tournament, Johnny Lawrence, now in his 50s, works as a part-time handyman and lives in an apartment in Reseda, Los Angeles, having fallen far from the wealthy lifestyle in Encino that had been enabled by his verbally abusive step-father, Sid Weinberg. He has a son, Robby Keene, with ex-girlfriend Shannon Keene, but he abandoned them both when both Robby was born and Johnny’s mother Laura died on the same day. Johnny, admittedly, has never recovered from his breakup with then high school girlfriend, Ali Mills.

After losing his job, a down-and-out Johnny rescues his teenage neighbor Miguel Diaz from a gang of bullies using karate. Miguel, an asthmatic child raised by his Ecuadorian single mother Carmen, asks Johnny to teach him. Initially reluctant, Johnny finally agrees and decides to reopen the Cobra Kai karate dojo as a chance to recapture his past; however, this act reawakens his rivalry with Daniel LaRusso. Daniel, now the owner of a highly succ