(screenrant.com 2-14-25)
In what was one of the show's most surprising cameos, Cobra Kai season 6 part 3 brought back Daryl Vidal, a character who hasn't been since The Karate Kid in 1984. Cobra Kai has made a tradition out of featuring at least one additional character from the Karate Kid movies, so there was naturally an expectation that the show's final season would follow this trend. Based on the fact that the franchise had few characters left to reintroduce ahead of Cobra Kai's final stretch, much of the speculation regarding who could fill that role revolved around Hilary Swank's Julie Pierce, but the series ultimately chose a different course.
Rather than go with the biggest name still missing from Cobra Kai, the series featured not one, but two lesser-known characters from the films. The second segment of season 6 saw William Christopher Ford reprise his role as Dennis de Guzman, one of Terry Silver's henchmen from The Karate Kid Part III. For its final five episodes, the show went with an even more obscure character in Darryl Vidal, a competitor from the 1984 All-Valley Karate Tournament.
During the Sekai Taikai finals in Cobra Kai season 6 part 3, a character introduced as "Darryl Vidal" was brought on stage to serve as the referee. In universe, the decision was made to honor his status as the champion of the 1981 All Valley Karate Tournament, but as a brief flashback made clear, Darryl Vidal's importance goes beyond that. Although a minor character in the film, Vidal did serve an important purpose, in that he was the tournament participant that Johnny had to overcome in order to face Daniel in the finals.
Having bested a pair of Kreese's students with relative ease in the preliminary rounds, Vidal presented himself as a formidable fighter in the preliminary rounds. Stated by the announcer to be a student of the Locust Valley Karate Club, Vidal advanced to the semifinals, but didn't prove to be much of a challenge to Johnny. Vidal lost without scoring a point, and was therefore eliminated.
Losing to Johnny in the semifinals the extent of Vidal's significance to the film itself, but it wasn't necessarily his loss that made his cameo in the show seem so fitting; rather, it was the backstory crafted for him by Cobra Kai years before his return. Vidal has been brought up on multiple occasions when Bobby, Kreese, and Johnny reminisce about the All Valley. As it turns out, Vidal had at least two years of experience fighting Cobra Kai prior to the movie's story. In that time, he had fought Johnny, Tommy, and Bobby.
According to Kreese, Vidal was a "very skilled" fighter, so much that he actually beat Johnny in the quarterfinals of the 1981 tournament. However, the effort that Johnny put into the fight, despite being well below Vidal's level at that time, convinced Kreese that Johnny was "the real deal." As Kreese told Robby, Vidal was a "three-degree black belt," whereas Johnny had only recently been taken under Kreese's wing.
In that respect, Darryl Vidal played a crucial role in Johnny's development as a fighter, as that loss helped Kreese recognize his potential. Kreese has always been adamant about Johnny being the best student he ever had, and the amount of dedication he put into training him can in turn be traced back to this particular moment. It notably had an equal impact on Johnny, because Kreese said that he could tell that Johnny wouldn't allow such a defeat to happen again. Evidently, the loss served as motivation for Johnny, and may have been what prompted his back-to-back titles.
Darryl Vidal is a confirmed participant in three iterations of the All-Valley Karate Tournament in The Karate Kid: 1981, 1983, and 1984. It's unclear if he competed at all in 1982 when Johnny won his first of two championships. After beating Johnny during the latter's first year of competitive fighting, he went on to win it all, taking home the 1981 title. It's possible that he fought in 1982, but if he did, he obviously fell short of repeating. As for the 1983 tournament, it's known from the episode that reunited Johnny with his friends from The Karate Kid that Vidal was beaten by Tommy in the seminars. Based on the way Johnny explained it, Vidal was the expected winner.
A newspaper article from season 3 established that immediately after his loss, Vidal took place in a match to decide the 3rd place winner. Here, he lost to Bobby, who had lost his semifinals match to Johnny. Presumably, his return to the semifinals in the 1984 tournament marked the end of his competitive journey. From the looks of things, he was never able to recapture the glory he was able to achieve in 1981, with all three of his known defeats coming at the hands of Cobra Kai.
Interestingly, the Darryl Vidal character shares his name with the actor who plays him. The 1984 movie credited him as "Karate Semifinalist," but both the announcer and the tournament bracket provided his real name. Vidal also worked on the film in another capacity, specifically as a stunt double for Pat Morita during some of Mr. Miyagi's action scenes. The bit role of Johnny's semifinal opponent and the body double work made sense for Vidal, considering that he had no prior acting credits, but was sufficiently skilled in martial arts.
Having had only one acting role between The Karate Kid and Cobra Kai season 6 part 3, Darryl Vidal ultimately never developed an acting career, and focused more on being a martial arts instructor. But due to his small yet meaningful connection to The Karate Kid universe, it was fitting that Vidal be brought back for a cameo in some form. And though Vidal didn't feature heavily in the show, he did receive the distinction of being the show's final returning character from The Karate Kid movies.
https://screenrant.com/cobra-kai-season-6-part-3-darryl-vidal-return-explained/
