Mike Barnes

Michael "Mike" Barnes is the tertiary antagonist of The Karate Kid Part III and a major character in Cobra Kai.
He is portrayed by Sean Kanan.
== Biography ==
=== The Karate Kid, Part III ===
Mike Barnes was hired by Terry Silver to defeat Daniel LaRusso in the All Valley Karate Championship, in exchange for 25% (later 50%) ownership of his new Cobra Kai dojos. He constantly torments Daniel and tries his best to force Daniel into signing an application for the All Valley Karate Tournament (which Daniel chooses not to enter because he has no reason to fight) until Daniel agrees when he threatened to push him and his friend Jessica Andrews off the cliff. When Silver, Mike, and John Kreese reveals their plan to Daniel, Mr. Miyagi arrives at the Cobra Kai dojo and defeats the trio. After learning of Cobra Kai's plan, he finally agrees to train Daniel for the tournament.
At the tournament Mike (under Silver's instructions) to deliberate fights with Daniel by scoring points and then losing them with penalties. Despite his situation, Daniel manages to defeats him in a sudden death match with the kata that Miyagi taught him earlier. After being defeated, Mike starts pounding the ground in frustration.
=== Interim Years ===
Following his loss, Mike was banned from karate. Mike then found himself working many odd jobs, one of them being at a furniture store named, Agoura Fine Furnishings, where he meets their owner, who helped him learn he could do something with his hands other than fight. Mike became engaged to his daughter, Michelle, and became the co-owner of the furniture store. His life has become better since then.
=== Cobra Kai ===
==== Season 5 ====
One day at his furniture store, while Mike was on a call with Michelle about the delivery of their new furniture sets from Japan, he was interrupted and approached by his former rival, Daniel LaRusso, who suspects that Terry Silver is recruiting him to run his Cobra Kai dojos across the valley. Daniel threatens the worker but is confused about what's going on. Mike refreshes Daniel when he shows him the store and tells Daniel that he is the actual owner. 
He apologizes for misinterpreting his conversation and Mike also apologizes for the torment he put him through. He tells him that he wanted to leave the past behind, his defeat banned him from karate, and also praises Daniel for his successful life. The two then talk about Silver and Mike states that he hasn't talk to him in years and can't do anything to stop him. Daniel is happy that Mike is an old Cobra Kai student who is not aggressive to him. After, Daniel and Mike playfully spar but Chozen Toguchi steps in and fights him. Daniel then breaks up the fight and tells Mike it was a misunderstanding. Mike then tells about one his attorneys and Daniel calls him through a voicemail to talk about Terry Silver. He allows Chozen to buy his couch and changes the price to $2,000 instead of $1,200 for attacking him and his employees earlier. Terry finds out about this and burns down Mike's furniture store, shocking the latter when he arrived at the place from the parking lot.
On the night when Daniel, Johnny Lawrence, and Chozen are celebrating and using a limo to head to another bar, Mike hijacks the limo and drives them all to a rural area. He then viscously grabs Daniel out of the limo and accuses him of ruining his life while getting into a brief skirmish with Johnny until Daniel and Chozen intervened and introduces Mike to Johnny. Mike states that his life was fine until Daniel showed up which resulted the destruction of his store, Mike being broke, and his wife left him. Daniel tells him that it was Silver who burned down his store and promises to do what he can to help Mike rebuilt his business. Mike realizes Daniel's right, and he, Chozen, and Johnny go to Terry's house to get revenge while leaving Daniel in the middle of nowhere as he refuses with the idea due to being drunk.
Mike, Johnny, and Chozen arrive at Silver's house and breaks in. Mike confronts his former boss about his store. Reminding the trio that trespassing is a crime, Silver sends one of his senseis to deal with the trio. Mike holds his own against one of Silver's senseis, but is knocked out from behind quickly. He later regains consciousness and saves Johnny's life by beating the two hired Cobra Kai sensei's trying to kill him. Mike, Johnny, and an injured Chozen heads to the Cobra Kai dojo just as Silver has been defeated and arrested for his crimes, with Mike reconciling with Daniel once more. He takes Chozen to an ambulance to recover his injuries from his duel with Silver. Daniel sees in the limo that Mike has stolen a Rembrandt painting from Silver's mansion to cover up the damages from his destroyed furniture store.
==== Season 6 ====
Mike has since started using a warehouse to restart up his furniture business. He is also shown still wearing his wedding ring, implying he and Michelle eventually reconciled.
When the Sekai Taikai requires 6 players to compete and Daniel and Johnny are struggling on who they should pick. They hire Mike for the weekend in order to get an unbiased judge to decide which students of his dojo should go to the Sekai Taikai. Barnes, when he's addressing the students, makes it very clear that this is going to be a baptism by fire for them, for whoever is fortunate enough and strong enough to make it through the tests that he sets up to determine who deserves to go. It's also revealed that he wanted compete in the Sekai Taikai during his teen years, but he wasn't due to his loss to Daniel in 1985. Mike then talks to Daniel about their last encounter at the dojo and is happy to be back.
During the first phase of the training, Mike tells them they have to have speed, endurance, strength and teamwork to survive the first round. After, he picks twelve people to advance to the next phase. He picks the obvious choices in Hawk, Robby, Miguel, Sam and Tory. The other seven he picks are Mitch (whom Mike nicknames "Muscles," to the latter's delight), Kenny, Chris, Nate, Demetri, Anthony, and Devon while Bert and the rest of the students are eliminated. The next day, Mike has the students do a battle royale where each of the twelve students need to steal each other's flags. Devon however feels that Barnes is not paying enough attention to her, this angers Johnny. After the challenge, Tory, Miguel, Robby and Sam are chosen to go to Barcelona. However, Hawk, Demetri, Kenny, and Devon are tied and Mike will re-evaluate the scores. 
At night, Johnny goes to Mike's shop and tries to apologize. However, Mike sees it as Johnny trying to follow up about Devon and Mike explains that she is in the bottom. The two get into an argument which leads to a fight between the two former Cobra Kai's. The fight proves to be even until Barnes kicks Johnny to the ground. Believing he won, he insults Johnny by calling his karate a joke, the same insult he used on Daniel in their All Valley 1985 match, but is then kicked by the latter. Barnes goes back to fighting Johnny, but the latter defeats him by countering his strikes with Miyagi-Do moves before kicking him into a table, leading to Barnes conceding defeat. Mike admits to Johnny that since the destruction of his store, he has been longing for a fight and that going back to karate helped him get back on track. He then agrees to give Devon another shake. In the morning, he holds a find-the-flag competition to determine the final two choices for the Sekai Taikai. While the race is happening, Mike apologizes to Daniel about how he's been acting and mentions his fight with Johnny, something Daniel didn't know about. In the end, both Demetri and Devon win, and Mike proudly announces them as the winners. He then wishes Miyagi-Do "good luck" and parts ways with them.
== Personality ==
TBA
== Gallery ==
File:Mike Barnes S5.jpg
File:MikeBarnesS6.webp|Mike as a Miyagi-Do Co-sensei in Cobra Kai Season6
== Trivia ==
* During the end of Season 4, Silver explains that he will recruit old friends to help out Cobra Kai. This caused fans to hint that Silver was talking about Mike Barnes; however, it wasn't true, and it turned out Barnes has become a changed man, running a furniture business.
* Mike Barnes is the third rival of Daniel LaRusso to be redeemed, following Johnny Lawrence and Chozen Toguchi. Just like Lawrence, the two of them were influenced by their mentors such as Terry Silver and John Kreese that turned into a villain.
* Barnes is the third ex-rival to become one of the senseis of the Miyagi-Do Karate for the preparation of Sekai Taikai in the sixth season.
== External Links ==
* Mike Barnes on the Villains Wiki
* Mike Barnes on the Karate Kid Wiki
* Mike Barnes on the Wikipedia
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