» characters · eli "hawk" moskowitz
Hawk (Jacob Bertrand) is Demetri's best friend and one of Miguel's high school friends. He is a victim of cyberbullying due to his cleft lip surgery scar. Eli is initially quiet, shy and sensitive, and he is told by doctors that he may be on the autism spectrum. He joins Cobra Kai, where Johnny nicknames him "Lip" due to his scar, but he takes Johnny's advice of "flipping the script" and undergoes an attitude change. Hawk cuts his hair into a mohawk, gets a hawk with a mohawk tattooed on his back, developing a much more aggressive and rather antagonistic personality, and is dubbed Hawk by Johnny. In the All-Valley Tournament, Hawk is disqualified in the semi-finals for dishonorably attacking Robby from behind in retaliation for Robby making fun of his mohawk right before the finals round begins in a very similar fashion to Bobby from the first film; unlike Bobby, Hawk is unapologetic for his actions.
In season 2, Hawk is reprimanded by Johnny for his actions during the tournament, but he becomes more aggressive and forms his own gang with some of the newer students. Hawk's friendship with Demetri crumbles after the latter joins Miyagi-Do and posts a negative review of Cobra Kai on Yelp. Demetri is confronted by Hawk and his gang at the mall, but they are stopped by Sam and Robby. In the aftermath of the mall fight, Moon breaks up with Hawk, disgusted with his bullying behavior against Demetri. Encouraged by Kreese, Hawk and his gang vandalize the Miyagi-do Karate dojo and Daniel's prized 1948 Ford Super DeLuxe convertible, stealing Mr. Miyagi's Medal of Honor in the process. During a training exercise in Coyote Creek, Miguel learns of Hawk's crimes and defeats him in a match, taking the medal with him and returning it to Daniel via Robby. During a party at Moon's house, Demetri makes an effort to reconnect and is initially successful, but is rebuffed and humiliated when Hawk pours booze over his head. A vengeful Demetri subsequently retaliates by giving a public roast in which he outs Hawk as a bedwetter, causing a standoff between the rival students that is diffused when the police break up the party.
On the first day of school, Hawk takes advantage of a scuffle with Tory and Sam and a scuffle between Miguel and Robby to incite a gang fight between the dojos. In the chaos, Hawk targets Demetri in retaliation for roasting him and outing him as a bedwetter at Moon's party, but is defeated by him when Demetri outsmarts him by kicking him and sending him crashing into a trophy case. Following the fight, Hawk turns against Johnny and sides with Kreese when he takes over Cobra Kai, openly blaming Johnny for Miguel's life-threatening injuries accidentally caused by Robby at the end of the school brawl.
Upon his return to school in season 3, Hawk continues his antagonistic streak but becomes increasingly conflicted with his loyalty to Cobra Kai as Kreese slowly removes the remaining holdouts from Johnny's Cobra Kai, first when he expels Bert and several other students who refuse to feed a hamster to a snake, and later when he approaches Kyler and Brucks to try out for spots in the dojo, with the former replacing Mitch and the latter being subject to a vicious beating from Hawk. In addition, Hawk is pressured into breaking Demetri's right arm during a gang fight with Miyagi-Do at the laser tag park where Chris works, which he does with some obvious reluctance, costing him his friendship with Miguel when Miguel finds out about it. When Kreese recruits Robby to Cobra Kai, Hawk adamantly and furiously disapproves of him being enrolled in Cobra Kai due to his actions against Miguel during the school brawl, but Kreese shows no sympathy. While at the zoo to steal a Chinese Cobra for Kreese, Hawk, Tory, Kyler, Robby, and several other students are chased out, thinking that they have failed due to Kyler forgetting the snake pole, but Robby returns with the snake, earning him the respect of the rest of the Cobra Kai students except for Hawk.
After being chastised over his behavior by both Miguel and Johnny, as well as realizing the errors of Kreese's teachings, along with the fact that Kreese indeed didn't care about him or anyone else as seen when he recruited Kyler and Robby to Cobra Kai, Hawk realizes his mistakes and redeems himself by breaking away from Cobra Kai during Tory's assault on the LaRusso residence, coming to Demetri's defense and reconciling with Demetri. Using a variant of the wheel technique that had been used against Hawk by Sam and Robby in the mall fight, Hawk and Demetri, alongside Miguel, are able to take down the remaining Cobra Kai students, forcing them to retreat. A vengeful Tory threateningly warns Hawk to watch his back, but Demetri retorts that he's got friends that stand by Hawk's side. Hawk reconciles with Miguel and Johnny and joins Eagle Fang Karate. When Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang subsequently begin training together to defeat Cobra Kai, Hawk and Demetri stand together as they start.
In season 4, Hawk continues to train with both Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang, and eventually rekindles his romance with Moon. Despite having turned his back on Cobra Kai, he is turned down by his allies for his transgressions, but eventually earns their respect by building a new sparring deck in the Miyagi Do dojo. Later, his mohawk is shaved off by Cobra Kai as revenge for the Miyagi Do and Eagle Fang students humiliating them at a drive-in event as well as for betraying them during the house fight. As a result, he loses his confidence and briefly quits karate altogether due to being depressed about not having his mohawk to compensate for his cleft lip scar. When the two dojos split once again, Hawk goes back to being Eli and joins Miyagi Do, at Demetri's insistence rather than remaining with Eagle Fang. He eventually regains his confidence, realizing that his true confidence came from himself, allowing him to easily defeat Kyler in the quarterfinals. In the boys' tournament finals, after Miguel forfeits his match, Eli fights Robby to a draw due to their knowledge of both Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do techniques, resulting in sudden-death overtime. However, Eli's combination of offense and defense, rather than his previous style of all aggressive offense as well as having gained balance, allows him to emerge victorious over a distracted Robby, becoming the All-Boys champion for Miyagi-Do in the tournament.
In season 5, Eli continues to remain a part of Miyagi-Do and his relationship with Moon while growing a new mohawk. During the Sekai Taikai tryout match, Eli fights Kenny and decides to become Hawk again. Despite this, Hawk is defeated by Kenny, who uses the illegal "silver bullet" technique, forcing him to forfeit the match. After Tory switches sides, the Miyagi-Dos and Eagle Fangs work together to break into Cobra Kai where Hawk and Demetri hack into the servers and steal the security footage of Terry Silver confessing to bribing the tournament referee. During the ensuing fight, Kyler taunts Hawk over his loss to Kenny, but rebuffs it by calling Kyler out for being a bully. The two upload it to the Cobra Kai YouTube channel with Hawk sending the computer to Anthony LaRusso to finish the job during the brawl that follows while he and Demetri join the fight. Silver is exposed and arrested while the Cobra Kais abandon him.