Xolo Maridueña's Miguel Diaz became a world champion in karate after winning the Sekai Taikai, which Cobra Kai decided to celebrate on social media.
Miguel was the heart and soul of Cobra Kai. From being Johnny's first-ever student to breaking his back to then winning the most prestigious karate tournament in the entire world, Miguel proved himself over and over.
Throughout Cobra Kai's run (which had to come to an end after Season 6), Maridueña appeared in all 65 episodes, being one of only three of the younger actors to do so (the other two were Tanner Buchanan (Robby Keene) and Mary Mouser (Samantha LaRusso)).
Cobra Kai Honors Miguel Diaz
The Cobra Kai social media team decided to honor Xolo Maridueña's Miguel Diaz with two social media videos celebrating his win in the championship round of the Sekai Taikai.
After Miyagi-Do's Robby Keene was injured by the Iron Dragons' Axel Kovačević (played by Patrick Luwis, who has some interesting personal life facts fans should know) and unable to return, Kovačević was set to win the boys' singles championship match by default.
However, at the last minute, Miguel swapped dojos and represented Cobra Kai one last time to fight Axel in the finals.
The first video shared by Cobra Kai featured a split screen with the top portion showing the final fight between Miguel and Axel while the bottom part showcased a crowd watching the episode live in a theater and reacting to the action.
It also included a caption that noted it being "a final fight worthy of a champion:"
"A final fight worthy of a champion! Miguel left it all on the mat and the crowd was on the edge of their seats! This is what the Sekai Taikai is all about!"
In the nearly three-minute-long clip, the audience watched as Miguel landed point after point on Axel. It also notably included the moment when Miguel pivoted and left his back open for Axel to strike, which would have broken his spine and could have even killed him (read more about every character who died in Season 6, Part 3 here).
Axel chose not to injure his opponent, though, showing honor in losing instead of exploiting an injury to win.
That clip also featured the flashbacks shown throughout the fight as Miguel used everything he had learned throughout the entirety of Cobra Kai to beat Axel.
The full clip can be seen below:
The other video shared on X was a lot shorter and did not include a crowd reaction to anything from the history-making final season of Cobra Kai.
The full video was more of an edit than an actual clip as it included a vintage filter over it and included music over a series of shorter clips spliced together.
It began with William Zabka's Johnny Lawrence telling Miguel, "You're Miguel f*cking Diaz," which is what he said to Miguel outside of the original Cobra Kai dojo before Miguel's final fight with Axel.
The edit then featured small clips from different points of the final fight with Axel mixed in with a few flashbacks.
Then, at the very end, it featured Miguel raising his singles championship trophy high above his head.
The full video can be seen below:
What's Next for Miguel Diaz?
At the end of Cobra Kai Season 6, Miguel won the Sekai Taikai, meaning that he was the undisputed world champion of karate.
After that, he was supposed to stay in the Valley until going to Stanford for his first year of college, but he instead decided to travel to Okinawa for a few weeks with Sam (who he finally ended up with after having a complicated dating history) before his semester began.
Obviously, Miguel will be busy with school for the next few years in the Karate Kid universe, but it is possible that he could one day return and teach a dojo of his own. After all, Cobra Kai never dies, and Xolo Maridueña is so young that it seems almost impossible for him to never return to the franchise.
It is worth bringing up that he could have some sort of cameo appearance in Karate Kid: Legends, a feature film that will be released on May 30.
Karate Kid: Legends will see the return of Jackie Chan as Mr. Han (his first on-screen Karate Kid appearance since 2010's The Karate Kid with Jaden Smith), as well as the return of Ralph Macchio as Daniel LaRusso.
No other Karate Kid or Cobra Kai characters are expected to appear, but it definitely isn't entirely out of the question for one to pop up.
It is worth noting that Legends will be taking place three years after the events of Cobra Kai Season 6, so Miguel could be out of college by then or at least be on some sort of break.
At the end of the day, it is hard to imagine a world where Xolo Maridueña doesn't play Miguel Diaz again. It may take some time (like it did for William Zabka to return as Johnny Lawrence), but surely he will don the gi again at some point.
Cobra Kai is streaming on Netflix.
