A slender youngster from New Jersey entered a generation’s collective memory when he strolled onto a California beach in the summer of 1984. Despite being the best fighter, Daniel LaRusso did not prevail. He prevailed because he persisted when most people would have given up, and audiences sensed something in him that they couldn’t quite put their finger on. People are still experiencing it forty years later.
One of the earliest narrative techniques is the underdog story, which works because it isn’t really about basketball, boxing, or karate. It concerns the difference between an individual’s current situation and their desired state, as well as the specific type of work required to bridge that gap in the absence of any structural advantages. No one watching needed an explanation when Rocky Balboa trained in that meat locker in Philadelphia while his opponent slept in an opulent suite. They were already aware of it. Daniel LaRusso did the same while his classmates were at parties, waxing cars in a parking lot. It’s a different approach. The emotion is the same.
According to Ralph Macchio, who has lived with Daniel LaRusso for forty years, the character felt like “someone I knew” as soon as he read the script. That gut feeling was correct. LaRusso was successful because he was both universal enough for nearly everyone who had ever felt uncomfortable at a new school to identify with him and specific enough to feel real—the East Coast bravado hiding true vulnerability, the child who talks too much when he’s nervous. It’s more difficult to pull off that combination than it seems.
Cobra Kai tests what happens to an underdog after he wins, which is what makes it a more complex work of storytelling than its karate-sequel premise implies. In 2018, Daniel LaRusso owned the house, the bonsai trees, the car dealerships, and the koi pond. He has built a life and a brand using his thirty-year-old victory. And at some point during that process, the trait that made him easy to support has become more elusive. He’s still fighting, but now he’s fighting to defend what he has, which is very different from fighting to improve his situation. Even when they are unable to express it, audiences sense that change.
This is part of a larger trend that goes far beyond karate sequels. The underdog resonates because most people, even those who aren’t, feel like one at some point. The experience of being undervalued, falling behind, and having to put in more effort than the person next to you in order to arrive at the same location is so prevalent that it seems universal. Perhaps the most dependable way to experience this emotion is thru sports: a young athlete from a small town making it to the finals, a championship run by a team that no one picked. The emotional structure remains constant while the details change.
The Daniel LaRusso arc is intriguing because Cobra Kai depicts the costs of success on the underdog identity in an honest manner. When success does occur, it usually adds complexity to the narrative. The tenacious youngster turns into the establishment. The outsider turns into an insider. As the audience watches this, they occasionally experience a subtle ambivalence: they are happy that the character prevailed, but they are also a little homesick for the earlier version of themselves. There’s a feeling that the effort itself, rather than the outcome, was what made them compelling.
This could be the reason why underdog stories are always popular. These are not exercises in nostalgia. They serve as reminders that most people need to hear from time to time: that hard work counts, that circumstances don’t determine fate, and that the gap can be filled. That reminder came from seventeen-year-old Daniel LaRusso, standing on one leg in a tournament he had no business winning. And the original moment has endured, regardless of whether the adult version of him consistently lives up to it. That’s just what some stories do.
