Show seems to be doing one of those interesting tropes where the bully is teaching the bullied how to fight.
Like that inverse approach.
It kinda paints the original Cobra Kais in a new light.
While they were the bullies in the original film, in this series they start out as nerds who later become bullies, implying the original Cobra Kais were possibly the same way and changed under the bad influence of Kreese.
Not really, since it was the 80s. The trope here is similar to... to what 2012's 21 jump street did, where what's seen as cool and lame has completely changed from the previous decade or 2. Similarly, we can see today that nerds can be bullies and jocks can be kind friendly souls. The traditional 80s archetype of nerd, jock, burnout etc as seen in the classic movie the breakfast club has become a mishmash of all the different stereotypes.
You could interpret it that way, yeah, but I still think there's evidence that implies that the Cobras weren't necessarily bad kids to begin with. There's a flashback where we see Johnny before he joins Cobra Kai. He's shown to be a bit of a wimp and mama's boy. He's clearly not the same after being in Cobra Kai for a while. It changed him.
That's minor spoilers.
"No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher." - Mr. Miyagi. This is literally one of the major themes of both the original film and the series. ---