The co-creators of Cobra Kai and star Xolo Maridueña talk about the new level of fights ahead of the show’s return. After an absence of almost two years, the series-ending Cobra Kai season 6 will debut on Netflix in just a few weeks. Split into three parts, the first five episodes will be released on July 18. The next five arrive on November 28, and the final five will drop sometime in 2025. And when it does, it sounds like the dojo drama will have an added intensity.

During Screen Rant‘s set visit to Cobra Kai season 6, Maridueña and co-creators Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg previewed the fights in the show’s final episodes. Maridueña, who plays Miguel Diaz, mentioned the crew and noted the introduction of new characters. As for Hurwitz and Schlossberg, who co-created the Netflix spinoff with Josh Heald, they talked about telling stories through martial arts. Read their quotes below:

Xolo Maridueña: The stunts are definitely the hardest part of this season, and I’m so glad for Ken and Don, our fight coordinators and stunt coordinators, for being able to help train us. The preparation is the same in that we’re stretching and working a bunch. The only thing that’s different is just that there’s more people to fight, more fights, the workload is just longer. But the previous five years were really the prep for this last season when it gets to the world tournament. They’re not holding back, we have some really great new characters, and new martial artists, who are fantastic. They really help encourage us and inspire us, and aside from that, the prep has just been emotionally preparing to prepare this show to drop.

Jon Hurwitz: I’ll just say Ken and Don are spectacular, and I think that the fights have evolved as our kids have gotten better and better. We wanted to show their growth, and you don’t want the fights to feel the same and be stagnant. You want, as they’re growing, the fighting world around them is growing, and Ken and Don put so much thought into every single element of the fights. We, in the writers room, tell stories through the fights. It’s not like, “Okay, now they have a fight.” There’s character beats going on in every single fight that we have. We’ve worked with them for so long that they’re sort of the interpreters of they know martial arts, and we don’t. So, they’re basically interpreting what we’re trying to say through martial arts, and we were always talking about, “Okay, each character has their own specific style of what they like to do there, depending on what dojo they’re in, depending on who the individual character is, their background, what their individual strengths are.” And we’ve been filming the fights, if you look at season 6, we think the stunts are on a whole new level.

Hayden Schlossberg: The biggest thing [we brought from filming Obliterated] is Abe Martinez, our director of photography from Obliterated, who happened to work as a camera operator on Cobra Kai season 1. So, he was a camera operator in season 1, then left us because he got better opportunities as a director of photography, did shows like National Treasure, and then when it came time to do Obliterated, we were looking at a bunch of different DPs and linked up with him again, and we had such a great experience that we brought him in. It’s helped in terms of when we deal with the fight choreography, he knows our language, and he’s done a great job getting to know Ken and Don. So, everything this season is on a whole new level. Like, we don’t have to worry necessarily about the shots, we’re focused mostly on making sure that the moves are in the best shape.

Cobra Kai Season 6’s Fight Tease Is Great News

Fights Have Always Been Central To The Show.

It’s confirmed that season 6 will explore the international Sekai Taikai tournament and Miguel is a natural fit to be a leading contender in the Karate championship. But as shown in the Cobra Kai season 6 trailer, there will be foes trained by the villainous Kreese that Miguel and the rest of the protagonists will have to face. It’s clearly weighing on Miguel, who is considering what it means to be thought of as the best karate fighter in the world.

Plus, after Cobra Kai season 5 essentially ended all the major rivalries, the trailer confirms that not all tensions have evaporated. There is still some friction between Miguel and Robby, as is the case with Samantha and Tory. Even though Daniel and Johnny are finally beyond their disputes, the new additions to the cast could have a way of resurfacing old grudges. If so, that’s a good sign for the final episodes since Cobra Kai does its best when it can bring the personal side into a physical fight, as evidenced in previous seasons.

With its three-part split, the Emmy-nominated dojo drama might have potentially structured its farewell in such a way that there is at least one standout fight season in each of the five-episode drops. Alternatively, the Cobra Kai writers might have focused on making sure each character has one last memorable battle. Either way, given that the premiere is just weeks away now, it will be interesting to see how the comments from Maridueña and the creative team play out on-screen.