In 1985, Terry Silver, who is looking to assist his friend and comrade John Kreese in restoring the Cobra Kai dojo, hires Barnes as part of his plan.

He flies him to his mansion and offers him a part of Cobra Kai if he defeats Daniel LaRusso (which Mike Barnes bullied) in the next All Valley Under-18 Karate Championships.

Consequently, after Barnes loses, his unethical conduct results in him being barred from participating in karate for life, ruining his financial future.

When Daniel decides not to compete at the tournament, Silver reveals that he was the one who is behind Barnes and that his agenda was avenging John Kreese, who was his best friend all along.

Barnes wins and loses points on Daniel (nearly getting disqualified in the process), but gets defeated in the sudden death round.

Because of his unsportsmanlike behavior, Barnes and the entirety of the Cobra Kai dojo are banned from participating in the All-Valley tournament.

As he never met Terry Silver or Mike Barnes, Johnny succeeds at getting the ban overturned when he states that he does not know who they are, to Daniel's chagrin.

Mike then furiously proposes they exact vengeance on Silver once and for all, which Johnny and Chozen agree to do, while leaving Daniel stranded in the middle of nowhere.

In the aftermath, he steals the Rembrandt painting The Storm on the Sea of Galilee from Silver's home to pay for his lost store.

After it's revealed that only six fighters per dojo are allowed at the Sekai Taikai, Johnny and Daniel invite Mike to judge the students fairly, worried their own biases would get in the way.

Barnes puts the dojo through excruciating tests, ultimately selecting Miguel, Robby, Sam, Tory, Hawk, Demetri, Devon, Kenny, Mitch, Chris, Nate, and Anthony to compete in a Battle Royale, during which Johnny attempts to sway Mike into making Devon join the team.

Johnny defeats Mike, who explains his desire for a fight has been revoked by his recent experiences with Silver and Daniel, and who promises to give Devon a fair shake.

It was during this time that Pat Morita's stunt double, Fumio Demura, encouraged him to join the open call for the role of Mike Barnes.

However, he became so ill that he went to the hospital on Christmas Day, and had emergency surgery to stop internal bleeding caused by the use of aspirins.

He told them that the "only thing that I would respectfully request is that I don't think it's that interesting to play the character as this unidimensional bad guy that he was in the original film.

I'm 35 years down the road both as a man and as an actor, and I feel like there's a lot of different facets we could bring that would hopefully fill in what's happened to him over this period of time".

[3] Kanan enjoyed reuniting with original cast members: "Yuji [Okumoto, who plays Chozen] and Billy and I have seen each other much more over the years.

Ralph, I've only seen a couple times, but it's really been nice forming a brand new friendship with him all these years later as a 55-year-old married guy with kids.