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Cobra Kai Season 5 made Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) the big bad. John Kreese (Martin Kove) brought him back in season 4, but Silver got the upper hand and took over Cobra Kai. Throughout season 5, Silver gets his hands dirty, but one of those fights worried Griffith. 

[Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Cobra Kai Season 5 finale.]

'Cobra Kai' Season 5: Thomas Ian Griffith holds his sword in a fight
Thomas Ian Griffith | Curtis Bonds Baker/Netflix

Showbiz Cheat Sheet attended roundtable interviews with the cast of Cobra Kai. In Griffith’s, he shared the season 5 fight that intimidated even him. Cobra Kai Season 5 is now on Netflix. 

Thomas Ian Griffith made his own bed with Terry Silver’s fight against Chozen

Chozen (Yuji Okumoto) infiltrates Cobra Kai and fights the new senseis Silver brought in. By the season 5 finale, Chozen and Silver fight with swords. That was actually Griffith’s idea back in season 4, when the All-Valley Karate Tournament included weapons competitions. 

“When they said they’re going to bring Chozen back, at the end of season 4 they talked to me and it’s like oh, the two villains from the movies,” Griffith said. “It’s like oh, this is going to be electric and everyone’s anticipating it. How are we going to top it? It was during the weapons competition, I’m watching, I said, ‘I’m really good at swords.’ ‘Yeah, right.’ I said, ‘No, I am really.’ Then I knew that Don Lee, our fight choreographer, was a weapons expert. I’m going, ‘Let’s go for it.’ So we posited this idea to them and it’s like. ‘I don’t know if they’re going to do it.”

By ‘Cobra Kai’ Season 5, Thomas Ian Griffith bit off more than he could chew 

Well, they did listen to Griffith. When he got to the sword fight at the end of Cobra Kai Season 5, Griffith had to put his money where his mouth was. In fact, there’s a fakeout where you think Silver might have actually killed Chozen.

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‘Cobra Kai’ Season 5: Ralph Macchio Says 1 of Daniel’s 2 Fights With Terry Silver Was Easier

Then it’s like the danger factor just goes up. On a shooting schedule, you don’t have that much time. It’s like we have to rehearse but Yuji was so committed to saying let’s just break it down. Let’s build up until we get to the speed. When you’re doing it with Don Lee, again we’re going 90 miles an hour. You go on set, you go we got to tone this down a little bit. But we worked it up to a performance level. So I think that was the most challenging that I go, ‘I hope I didn’t bite off more than I could chew. I hope this can work.’ But I think it’s really cool and it’s so unexpected and so different. I think with the two great senseis, the audience deserves something they haven’t seen before.”

Thomas Ian Griffith, Cobra Kai Season 5 roundtable, 8/26/22

It did pay off. Until Chozen hobbled out of the house at the end, we actually thought he was a goner. 

Thomas Ian Griffith practiced martial arts since before ‘The Karate Kid Part III’

Martial arts helped Griffith get the role of Terry Silver in The Karate Kid Part III. He continued to practice it in between the movie and returning to the series. However, he doesn’t always spend all day filming epic fight scenes. That was also biting off a lot.

“In terms of martial arts, it’s part of my life,” Griffith said. “It’s my therapy. I’ve always been doing it. If I miss a few days, my wife is going, ‘Go get a workout’. She knows. It just gives me balance. What I didn’t expect is thinking oh, I’m in great shape. I’m going to go back. You forget what it’s like to do it 10 hours a day. That first day I’m showing off and all these things I can do and that night I am sitting in the bathtub going what have I gotten myself into? How can I do this for an entire season? So it was pretty cool.”

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