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German soccer fans turned on a racist heckler, punctuating his exit with an anti-Nazi chant

As a soccer match between German teams Preussen Munster and Würzburger Kickers went into its final minutes, a defender from the Kickers, 23-year-old Leroy Kwadwo, stopped to point out a problem in the stands.

A Munster fan was making monkey noises at Kwadwo, a black player of Ghanaian descent. It was a clearly racist heckling—an issue that has publicly plagued the international sport in various venues, even as recently as last week. But this time, the response from the crowd far outshined the racist in the stands.


First, the man was quickly identified by his fellow Munster fans and ejected from the game. While stewards escorted him from the stadium, the crowd chanted, “Nazis out! Nazis out!”

Some fans also stood and applauded Kwadwo and the player received supportive pats on the back from opposing team members as well.

This is how it’s done, folks.

Kwadwo thanked fans via social media the next day for their “exemplary” reaction, the Associated Press reported:

“I was racially abused by one single spectator. It just makes me sad. I indeed have a different skin color, but I was born here in this wonderful land that has given my family and I so much and made so much possible. I am one of you. I live here and can live my calling as a professional with the Würzburger Kickers.

Something like yesterday just makes me sad and angry because everyone has to know, racism does not belong in OUR world. We all have the opportunity to oppose it and stop it if it happens.”

Munster said it would seek to ban the racist fan from all German stadiums for three years, which is the toughest sanction the sport itself can implement. However, the man also faces legal consequences and is being charged with incitement.

“As repulsive as the monkey noises against the player were, the subsequent response from the rest of the spectators were so impressive,” the Preussen team said in a statement.

According to CNN, Preussen Munster president Christoph Strasser said of the heckling: “It is not something that belongs on the soccer field and certainly not in our stadium. We don’t want and need people like that here. We clearly distance ourselves from such statements and I apologized to the Würzburgers immediately after the game.”

If we have to live with nasty racists in our midst, it’s at least encouraging to see a huge crowd reject it with such immediacy and fervor. Nazis out, indeed.

This article originally appeared on 3.1.23

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Parents win fight to get young daughter a tryout with Mississippi school’s baseball team

As the old saying goes, “baseball is America’s pastime.” It was so important that during the second World War, Major League Baseball executives created all women’s baseball teams since most of the young men were away fighting. The blockbuster hit movie, “A League of Their Own” details this era that not only provided fans with entertainment but proved women could be fierce competitive baseball players.

One South Mississippi family found themselves in the middle of a battle they didn’t anticipate when it came to the game. Their daughter Jewel has been playing baseball since she was 5-years-old on city recreational teams, eventually making All Stars and travel baseball. With the 7th grader aging out of the recreational program, she wanted to join the middle school team.

That’s where the problem came in. The girl’s mom, Shannon van Duijvendijk says the Ocean Springs School District refused her a tryout for the baseball team.


This is the same school district that has had girls step out of their football cleats to put on a homecoming crown after kicking for the high school team. So the decision seemed a bit confusing for the community who chimed in to support the parents petitioning for Jewel to play on the middle school team.

Jewel is one of two girls planning to try out for the baseball team that many of their male teammates are competing for. But it was van Duijvendijk’s husband who was determined to make sure his daughter got to play the game that she loves.

“It was actually my husband. That sense of injustice rose up in him and he was just like ‘no, uh uh.'”

The initial call came from the school’s athletic director who told them that it was a state rule that girls couldn’t play on the baseball team because softball was considered an equivalent. That’s when Mr. van Duijvendijk started contacting every person he could find in Jackson to help get his daughter a tryout. But the quest to speak with someone on the state level proved to be futile.

After finding out the school’s grievance policy, the determined dad emailed the superintendent who was extremely responsive according to van Duijvendijk. The mom tells Upworthy that the superintendent contacted people at the state level, eventually reporting back that Mississippi’s High School Athletic Association (MSHAA) rule was unclear.

The rule from section 7.6.2 of the MSHAA Handbook reads in part, “When a state championship is offered for girls, they may not play on a boys’ team in that sport.”

As van Duijvendijk points out in her post, baseball and softball are two different sports and that ruling was made official by the NCAA in 2009. So a girls softball team would not be equivalent to a boys baseball team, according to the NCAA rules, the equivalent to baseball is baseball.

van Duijvendijk explains that the family got the most pushback from parents of softball players, which it is suspected the original complaint about girls trying out for baseball originated. There was confusion over why a girl would prefer to play baseball over softball and speculation on if the parents felt that baseball was superior.

But there was no feeling of one sport being superior over the other. In fact, in van Duijvendijk’s social media post she writes, “I know a lot of people don’t understand why she chose to play baseball instead of softball, I didn’t for a while either. In the beginning I tried to convince her so many times to make the switch.”

Jewel was so steadfast in her determination to play the sport van Duijvendijk says could see it in her eyes. That changed everything for the mom when it came to her support of Jewel’s love of the sport. Right now, softball isn’t even a practical switch.

“She has never played softball and doesn’t even own the equipment necessary to play the game. We have nothing against softball and we have so much love and respect for the girls that do play it, but that is not the sport she plays.”

Thanks to the determination of a dad who saw his daughter encounter an injustice, a mom who would do anything to support her and a superintendent that was intent on hunting someone down to clear up the rules–Jewel gets to tryout. Now that’s what you call teamwork. As for Jewel, she’s been playing with the boys since she was old enough to pick up a ball, she just wanted a chance to show them what she can do.

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Intimacy coach debunks myth about couples who post too much about themselves on social media

Do you have any friends who constantly post about their relationships with their significant other on social media? Are they continually posting photos and writing things like, “She’s my everything. I couldn’t get through a day without her.” Or, “You are my best friend and soulmate, not just my partner. Together, we create a more beautiful love story than I could have imagined.”

Sometimes, couples writing touching dedications to one another can be sweet, but things start to look suspicious when it happens constantly. Why do these people need so much public confirmation of their relationship? Are they looking for likes and comments of support? Did someone cheat?

When couples are screaming this loud for attention, it looks like a big red flag that something is wrong in the relationship. It feels like the couple is overcompensating for something.

However, intimacy expert, relationship coach and hypnotherapist Katy Shelor disagrees with this popular theory. She believes that too many factors are at play to mark this online behavior as a red flag.

“So there’s a theory that, basically, the more couples are kind of over-posting about each other on Instagram, for example, that they’re actually compensating for something covering up some issues, the more likely they are to have problems,” she said in a viral Instagram post. “So, yeah, I think there’s a couple elements to this.”

“But I do think there may be a little bit of truth to it,” she continued. “First, you know, you have to always remind yourself not to get into the comparison game. So looking through other people’s feeds and looking at their couple’s romantic photos and their anniversary posts can make you feel like, oh my god. They’ve got it all figured out. Don’t they?”

“But we know that that’s not actually true. Right?” Shelor said.

Shelor believes there just isn’t enough research to determine a couple’s status based on a few social media posts. “There’s little bits and pieces are all around basically saying that too much gushing may hint at an insecurity at the very least,” Shelor said. “Whereas for some people I think, you know, the sharing is it’s just a positive.”

One study suggests that oversharing in relationships may have more to do with people’s attachment styles than the status of their relationships. Attachment styles are formed during early childhood based on the quality of the relationship between a child and their primary caregiver. These styles are influenced by the caregiver’s responsiveness and consistency, shaping the child’s expectations and behaviors in future relationships.

People with anxious attachment styles need a lot more affirmation in their relationships, whether it’s from their significant other or the general public. So, even though their relationship may be going well, they may still need a little more affirmation here and there than most people.

Whereas people with avoidant attachments will post about their relationships much less often because they don’t feel the need to make them visible.

Jennifer Chappell Marsh, LMFT, regularly sees this dynamic in her office during couples therapy. “Avoidantly attached people tend to disengage and withdraw from their partners while anxiously attached people are almost always seeking reassurance about their relationship, even on social media,” Chappell Marsh said.

So, when they enjoy a night out together, the avoidant person may want to have a quiet dinner while the anxious person takes photos and posts them on Instagram. This causes tension in the relationship. “That disconnect triggers a spike in relationship anxiety for the anxious type,” Chappell Marsh said. “As a result, the insecure partner may take a relationship pic and post it on Facebook to get ‘likes.’ Oftentimes, they’re looking for positive attention in the absence of getting the reassurance from their partner.”

Although it’s unclear whether we can gauge the relationship status of our friends by their social media posts, there is evidence to suggest that if they post extremely often or not at all about their relationships, we can get a good idea of their attachment style.

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‘Severance’ Season 2: Everything To Know So Far About Ben Stiller And Adam Scott’s Return To The Office

Severance Season 2 Adam Scott
Apple TV+

Severance is one of Apple TV’s best original shows, so season two will definitely be worth the wait… even (especially?) if that wait was partially due to Adam Scott having to film Madame Web.

Season one was released in February 2022, and since then, fans have been anxiously awaiting to return to Lumen to figure out what the heck they are really doing over there. While we don’t know much about season two, we do know it’s coming soon and jam packed with guest stars — and hopefully at least one Music Dance Experience.

Plot

While we don’t know much about the upcoming season, we can assume the story will continue following the aftermath of the rollercoaster first season. After the explosive finale revealed that Mark’s wife is actually alive and works with him at Lumon, season two will likely explore the corrupt inner workings of the company. It was also revealed that Helly’s outie is the daughter of Luman’s CEO, which will no doubt cause a riff between Helly and the others.

As far as the other characters go, hopefully we will get a look at what their outie lives are like — and how they ended up at Lumen.

Cast

The whole gang (and their innie counterparts) are back for season two, including Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry, John Turturro, Patricia Arquette, Dichen Lachman, and Christopher Walken.

Some new faces will also be added into the mix, including Gwendoline Christie, Alia Shawkat, John Noble, and Merritt Wever.

Release Date

We know director and executive producer Ben Stiller is working on it…

…though we don’t have a release date quite yet.

In March, Stiller appeared on the Roommates Show, where he spoke mostly about basketball, but he did give a brief Severance tease. “It’s coming soon and we don’t have an actual date but I’ve been working on the second season of it for a long time, since we had a strike last year. So that cut us off for a while, he said. “We’re going to be shooting until probably like the end of April and it will be coming out sometime after that soon.”

Assuming they finished filming in April, we can expect/hope another update soon, but it seems like late 2024 or early 2025 is a safe bet.

Trailer

There has not been an official trailer yet, but a very brief clip was shown at an Apple event back in 2022. We can expect a real trailer anytime now.

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‘Bel-Air’ Season 3: Everything To Know, Including The Release Date, Cast, Plot, & More

'Bel Air' season 3, 305 'Getting Personal' episode w/ Jabari Banks as Will
Peacock

It’s summertime in Bel-Air! (Well, almost). The newly-announced third season of Bel-Air is just a few months away and its set to be focused on Will Smith’s first official summer in Bel Air following his move from Philadelphia to the city in season one. The new season will almost a year and half after season two came to a close following ten episodes that tracked Will’s basketball career, his love life, Carlton’s personal struggles, Phil and Vivian’s career moves, and more. Things will be a bit different now that its summertime, but you can expect the same quality Bel-Air episodes for season three. Here’s what you need to know for the upcoming season.

Release Date

Bel-Air returns for season three on August 15. That will make for almost a year and a half since the season two finale aired on Peacock. New episodes in season three of Bel-Air will air on weekly on Thursdays starting on August 15 with new episodes available to watch at 3am EST/12 AM PST. I season three is like seasons one and two, you can expect ten new episodes for this upcoming season.

Cast

The cast for season three of Bel-Air is expected to stay the same for the most part, but there will be some new additions as revealed by Deadline. Vic Mensa (The Chi) will join to play Quentin while Alycia Pascual-Peña (Moxie, Saved By The Bell) will take on the role of Amira. You can check out the full list of cast members and their roles below.

Main

  • Jabari Banks as Will Smith,
  • Olly Sholotan as Carlton Banks
  • Coco Jones as Hilary Banks
  • Adrian Holmes as Philip Banks
  • Cassandra Freeman as Vivian Banks
  • Akira Akbar as Ashley Banks
  • Jimmy Akingbola as Geoffrey Thompson
  • Simone Joy Jones as Lisa Wilkes
  • Jordan L. Jones as Jazz
  • Recurring

    • April Parker Jones as Viola “Vy” Smith
    • SteVonté Hart as Tray Melbert
    • Tyler Barnhardt as Connor Satterfield
    • Joe Holt as Fred Wilkes
    • Charlie Hall as Tyler Laramy
    • Jazlyn Martin as Jackie
    • Vic Mensa as Quentin
    • Alycia Pascual-Peña as Amira

    Plot

    In a press release for season three of Bel-Air, Peacock shared the official synopsis for the upcoming season. You can read that below.

    Season 3 is summer season of Bel-Air! No school. No uniforms. Just summer sizzle. Pools, beach parties, bonfires, fireworks, Juneteenth celebrations and lots of summer lovin’.

    Season 3 explores questions like, how do you prove yourself in a world that views you in limited ways? How do you reach beyond your comfort zone to create new opportunities for yourself? How does a family rebuild broken trust?

    Bel-Air has always been a show with a strong cultural point of view. In addition to our soapy teen and family stories, this season we’ll have a lot of great discussion on the gentrification happening in South LA and how so many people are capitalizing on the economy at the cost of the community. And this convo will become a backdrop through the season.

    Trailer

    Peacock has yet to release an official teaser or trailer for season three of of Bel-Air. Stay tuned for it as it should arrive in the coming weeks and months.

    Bel-Air Season 3 Episode Schedule

    Season three of Bel-Air is expected to have ten episodes. Here is the expected tentative schedule for the new season:

    • August 15: Episode 1
    • August 22: Episode 2
    • August 29: Episode 3
    • August 26: Episode 4
    • September 5: Episode 5
    • September 12: Episode 6
    • September 19: Episode 7
    • September 26: Episode 8
    • October 3: Episode 9
    • October 10: Episode 10

    How To Watch Bel-Air Season 3

    New episodes in season three of Bel-Air will be available weekly on Peacock on Thursdays at 3am EST/12am PST.

    Bel-Air Season 3 First Look Images

    'Bel-Air' 301 Hilary & Ashley
    Peacock

    ‘Bel-Air’ 301 Hilary & Ashley

    'Bel-Air' 301 Hilary & Jazz
    Peacock

    ‘Bel-Air’ 301 Hilary & Jazz

    'Bel-Air' 301 Will & Lisa
    Peacock

    ‘Bel-Air’ 301 Will & Lisa

    'Bel-Air' 304 Carlton & Will
    Peacock

    ‘Bel-Air’ 304 Carlton & Will

    'Bel-Air' 304 Carlton & Will
    Peacock

    ‘Bel-Air’ 304 Carlton & Will

    'Bel-Air' 305 Phil & Vivan
    Peacock

    ‘Bel-Air’ 305 Phil & Vivan

    'Bel-Air' 305 Will
    Peacock

    ‘Bel-Air’ 305 Will

    'Bel-Air' 307 Will & Lisa
    Peacock
    'Bel-Air' 308 Phil & Geoffrey
    Peacock

    ‘Bel-Air’ 308 Phil & Geoffrey

    ‘Bel-Air’ season 3 debuts on Peacock on August 15. Seasons 1 and 2 of ‘Bel-Air’ are available now to stream on Peacock.

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Walton Goggins Has No Idea Why Y’All Think He’s Having A ‘Feud’ With Timothy Olyphant

justified-raylan-boyd
FX

Walton Goggins and Timothy Olphyant’s characters dug coal together, for crying out loud. They went through decades of life together, and the actors lived those moments for six seasons. It was an intense time, for sure, and especially with the high-pressure schedule of a Hollywood shoot, it’s hard to imagine having a smooth ride every moment of the gig. Still, this duo occupies a soft spot in Justified fans’ minds, so yes, there was a bit of an uproar when Goggins revealed to The Independent that they “weren’t talking” by the end of the series and did not 110% swoon in each other’s footsteps for every moment of the FX production.

Fast forward to Olyphant — who had only recently merrily posed with Goggins near the beach in Thailand (where both HBO’s The White Lotus and FX’s Alien have been shooting) — having no inkling that this talk was afoot but did (laughingly) tell Vanity Fair that, sure, “We’d get really frustrated with each other.” This would only be the case because Walton tended to tell the writers that Boyd Crowder “would never do that,” and that generated some finale fiction. Everything was water under the holler, so to speak, but of course, this turned into a controversy because people love Raylan and Boyd and want everything to be alright.

The public conversation has now been kicked back to Goggins, who seemed “perplexed,” according to LA Times:

Said Goggins: “It’s so crazy. There is no feud.”

Pausing a few moments, he continued: “The ending of that show was hard emotionally, and people had different ways of dealing with it. It was a difficult goodbye and there were moments when we didn’t see eye to eye. But I would expect that from any long experience you care about. How can you go through an experience like that and not have a disagreement?

“The truth is … Tim is a dear friend of mine, and someone I love like a brother. I respect him as an artist and an actor, probably more than anyone. He’s still untapped at what he has to offer. I love the man. And I know he loves me.”

This surely only became a thing because people care, which just goes to show that, yes, we do need Raylan to chase Boyd in a second season of Justified: City Primeval. But yes, these two are just fine, y’all.

(Via LA Times)

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The Self-Proclaimed ‘Pervert’ Who Pitched Sydney Sweeney’s Hooters Sketch On ‘SNL’ Has Come Forward

sydney sweeney
nbc

It wasn’t the most-watched sketch of Saturday Night Live season 49, but there was a lot of conversation about “Hooters Waitress.” While making her SNL hosting debut, Sydney Sweeney played — you’ll never believe it — a waitress at Hooters who makes thousands of dollars in tips even though she’s not good at her job. The sketch became a whole… thing. But the Barbarella star was cool with the concept, as cast member Chloe Fineman explained on a recent episode of Dana Carvey and David Spade‘s Fly on the Wall podcast.

“Sydney Sweeney, I pitched her the Hooters idea, where I was like, maybe work at Hooters, and we’re counting tips,” the Megalopolis actress said, according to Decider. “I get $20 and you’re like, cool, I made like $40,000. And then she DM’d me to write it, and then we got in so much trouble for, like, sexualizing Sydney Sweeney. But it was your pervert over here!”

Spade and Carvey were fans of Sweeney and Fineman’s work. “It was so f*cking funny,” Spade said, while Carvey compared it to the “Beavis and Butt-Head” sketch. “Some of that silliness is just the way the world is,” he said. “That’s why ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ hit so hard. That Hooters sketch. I think we’re just in the mood for madness.”

You can listen to the Fly on the Wall podcast below.

(Via Decider)

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Glen Powell And Adria Arjona Inconveniently Caught ‘Crazy’ Rashes While Filming Their ‘Hit Man’ Sex Scenes

Hit Man
Netflix

Glen Powell may have turned down a leading role in the Jurassic Park franchise, but the man is still consistently putting his body at risk for our entertainment, and that has to count for something!

Powell and his co-star Adria Arjona had an unfortunate bathtub-related incident while filming Richard Linklater’s upcoming action-comedy Hit Man which caused them to both break out in a “crazy” rash. That run in happened to be in a bath filled with the preferred soap of baby ducks, Dawn.

Arjona told Variety the bath was filled with Dawn during one of their sex scenes. “That strips you of all your oils of your skin. That’s used for baby ducks when there’s an oil spill, for God’s sake,” Arjona said. “And it’s on this bathtub and we soaked in this bathtub for an hour and I get out of the tub and all of a sudden I dry myself and I can’t bend my knees because I have no oils.”

Hit Man stars Powell as a phony Hit Man who is hired by Arjona’s character to kill her husband. Unfortunately, Powell also had no oils. “That was the day that we filmed all of our sex scenes – all of them with a crazy rash,” the actress admitted, “We were both in so much pain. We would just die laughing, ‘How much makeup do you have on your ass right now?’ I was like, ‘So much, it’s not even funny.’”

It wasn’t funny, but it sure looked fun! The actress added, “We had fun because it was so funny. We were both in pain with makeup all over this rash and it was funny.” Even though it sounds painful, it’s better than the falling off of a cliff on the set of Anyone But You. Who knew romance was so dangerous!!!

Hit Man will be released in select theaters on May 24 before making its streaming debut on Netflix on June 7.

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Dad had no idea he was auditioning for ‘Britain’s Got Talent.’ He brought the house down anyway.

We’ve seen some moving America’s Got Talent stories before, but a recent viral audition absolutely requires a tissue warning. I tried to steel myself in preparation when I saw the “Admit it, we were *all* in tears after this” caption on the Facebook share of it, but I failed.

In a video that’s been shared more than 95,000 times, the “Britain’s Got Talent” audition shows two tiny little girls onstage with their grandmother. They introduce themselves as “Cally” (age 4) and “Savannah” (age 3) and “Nanny” (their “daddy’s mummy”) then the girls share that they are there to surprise their dad.

Dad—also known as Nick Edwards—is sitting in the audience. He thought the family was there to watch the audition on a fun outing; he had no idea that they had arranged a surprise audition for him, so when his girls and mom showed up on stage, he wondered what was going on.


A “Britain’s Got Talent” spokesperson explained to the Daily Mail how they got Edwards mic’d up without giving away the surprise.

“When Nick entered the Palladium auditorium during ‘BGT’ auditions, he was approached to be part of our ‘gogglebox’ audience and told he would be mic’d up so we could capture his reactions throughout the day as he sat in the audience,” they said. “He was totally unsuspecting. We did this so we could mic him up without him suspecting a thing.”

As Edwards tried to figure out what his mom and daughters were doing on stage, Edwards’ mother explained to the judges and the audience that he sings a special song to his girls. She said they wanted him to come up and sing it. Naturally, not being prepared for an audition, Edwards was stunned. But the judges sent him backstage to “grab a glass of water” so he could compose himself and get ready.

“They gave me some time to warm up—about 45 minutes in total,” Edwards told This Morning. “They gave me my guitar my family brought down on the day, they [producers] said this is the song we want you to sing because we’d seen it on your Instagram.”

The song is an emotional doozy, especially if you’re a parent. “It’s a song I’ve felt quite attached to so I sing it a lot around the house,” Edwards told the judges before he started to sing. Once you hear it, you’ll see why he joked about trying to keep from crying while he sang it.

Lovely voice. Beautiful song. Adorable little girls. Not a dry eye in the house.

Tissue, seriously. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The fact that Edwards was able to pull off that audition with less than an hour of preparation was quite impressive. He told This Morning what he was thinking during that prep time.

“If I go out I’ve got two options here, I either go out and try to own it or I come out and it all crumbles…” he said. “The whole thing just went so quickly. I do remember playing and in a way my fingers started to get a bit jelly, I remember thinking ‘this is going to be a big moment for you.’ I don’t want to stuff it up.”

Stuff it up he did not. What a lovely performance, and what lucky little girls to have a daddy who shares his love for them in such a beautiful and creative way.

This article originally appeared on 04.22.22

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‘Cobra Kai’ Season 6: Everything To Know About The Supersized Final Visit To The Dojo (Update For May 2024)

Cobra Kai
Netflix

Netflix’s Cobra Kai will roundhouse kick back into the dojo, finally, for a final and sixth season coming soon. This will happen sooner than expected but with a twist: the season will be a three-part package to deliver as proper an ending as possible. Remember, however, that “Cobra Kai will never die.”

That means that no matter what happens, The Karate Kid universe has received a rare example of a revival that matches the strength of the original project while always respecting what came before. Few people, if anyone, also would have expected this show to turn into such a juggernaut back when this was YouTube Red underdog show. Now, it’s hard to imagine not looking forward to another season of karate beefs. Let’s consider what is to come before this dojo closes for good.

Plot

Netflix has managed to regularly stoke the flames of curiosity about precisely what will add up to “the biggest season, the baddest season, the final season.” Filming is complete, however, and co-showrunner Jon Hurwitz delivered a formal farewell to Atlanta earlier this week to mark the occasion.

Additionally, Hurwitz dodged questions about whether Terry Silver or John Kreese will return, but he did reveal that the Miyagiverse is about to expand in ways that we’ve never seen before now:

“Season 6 expands the Karate Kid/Cobra Kai universe more than the first 5 seasons combined. The world building has been truly exhilarating. Excited for everyone to see the diversity of scenes we’ve been filming episode to episode. We’re going to so many new places in the Miyagiverse.”

With that said, every signal thus far is that Terry Silver is finally done and dusted (that crane kick is mostly cinematic, but — let’s get real — he probably can’t come back from that full circle moment in a narrative sense). Kreese, however, has freed himself from prison and even did so while on the cusp of exoneration from how Silver framed him. Surely, he’ll stay free, yes? Somebody has to try and resurrect that titular dojo, but that remains hypothetical. What appears to be more set in stone is that (as Ralph Macchio previously suggested to us) an international competition will be on the table:

“They’ve set up the international element of it, they’ve set up the master Kim in Korea. They set up Kreese, and they also set up that everything’s going back to normal and they’ve finally succeeded. But in a soap opera, as Cobra Kai is a karate soap opera, when one door closes, there’s always more that will open. There’s certainly room for that.”

That jibes with a very brief description (and no clear mention of whether Miyagi-do has fully absorbed Eagle Fang for good) provided by Netflix:

Picking up with Cobra Kai eliminated from the Valley, our senseis and students must decide if and how they will compete in the Sekai Taikai – the world championships of karate.

How will Johnny Lawrence juggle fatherhood (again) while preparing his students for global karate domination? Perhaps a more compelling question is this: will Kenny react to the collapse of his dojo and tweak his personality to go from being bullied and bullying to a well-adjusted competitor? And on an equally emotional note: will Eli “Hawk” Moskowitz’s hair have grown back before the start of this season? Speaking of Hawk, actor Jacob Bertrand jokingly wanted to see his character team up with Kreese for “some illegal ring of some sort.” Actually, I want to see that happen because, c’mon, this is a karate soap opera. Anything is possible.

Also, even if there’s no crossover to be found in the upcoming franchise movie with Jackie Chan and Ralph Maccho, Cobra Kai proved that it’s able to deliver a superior form of nostalgia by infusing a project with a cast of characters who are irresistible to younger generations. That will remain invaluable.

Cast

This show wouldn’t exist without Ralph Macchio and William Zabka as Daniel and Johnny Lawrence, respectively. Expect to see Mary Mouser as Samantha, Peyton List as Tori, Jacob Bertrand as Eli/Hawk, Xolo Maridueña as Miguel, Griffin Santopietro as Anthony, Tanner Buchanan as Robby, Gianni DeCenzo as Demetri, Dallas Dupree Young as Kenny. Courtney Henggeler will also return Amanda with Vanessa Rubio as Carmen, and we don’t yet know if there will be a Stingray (Paul Walter Hauser, who’s been very busy lately) onboard.

Did you want official enemies? Big Bad Terry Silver is likely outta the game, which means that (sadly) we won’t be seeing Thomas Ian Griffith, but Kreese (Martin Kove) is fresh outta prison, and I’m not sure how he will evade authorities, but he will surely be stirring up chaos.

Release Date

The first third of the season will stream on July 8.

Trailer

Netflix will likely be dropping a first trailer soon, but until then, this date-announcement video really wants us to believe that Kreese is back.