Cobra Kai Season 5 First Look Photos Tease Return of Mike Barnes

The fifth season of Cobra Kai comes to Netflix in September, meaning there isn’t long to wait now until we get the next chapter in the ongoing feuds and constantly shifting alliances between the various karate dojos of Encino, Californoa. Season 4 ended not only with Cobra Kai emerging victorious over both Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang at the All Valley Tournament, but with the big bad John Kreese being betrayed and set up by his partner, Terry Silver.

With Kreese now in jail, Terry Silver is running Cobra Kai and plans to expand across the San Fernando Valley: and he will be recruiting a familiar face to help him do so.

“As Terry Silver calls upon some old friends to put the Valley in a stranglehold, Daniel and Johnny are going to need all the help they can get to stop Cobra Kai in its tracks,” said Cobra Kai showrunners Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg in a recent Netflix announcement that was accompanied by a series of first-look photos at the new season which confirmed the identity of the “old friend” in question.

Appearing in one of those sneak peek pics is none other than Mike Barnes, the antagonist from 1989’s The Karate Kid Part III, played once again by actor Sean Kanan. In The Karate Kid Part III, Barnes was a professional fighter who was hired as a ringer by Terry Silver to defeat Daniel LaRusso at the All Valley Tournament. Although he succeeded in intimidating Daniel and making him doubt himself at various points in the movie, he was ultimately defeated, and that was the last viewers saw of him—until now.

Sean Kanan as Mike Barnes in Season 5 of ’Cobra Kai’

Season 5 of Cobra Kai will begin streaming on Netflix on September 9.