Karate Kid and Cobra Kai actor Martin Kove was asked to leave a fan convention in Puyallup, Washington, over the weekend after he allegedly bit fellow Cobra Kai actor Alicia Hannah-Kim on her arm.
Hannah-Kim called police after Kove, allegedly unprovoked, grabbed Hannah-Kim’s arm and bit it as she passed by a meet-and-greet table at the Summer Con convention, nearly drawing blood. He allegedly kissed her arm when she yelled out in pain, according to a police report obtained by Deadline.
Hannah-Kim and her husband, actor Sebastian Roche, who witnessed the alleged incident, say they told Kove immediately after what he did was completely unacceptable … and he allegedly “was furious and outraged and visibly angry when I told him calmly not to bite me … he insisted he bit me for fun,” according to the report.
Kove was at Summer Con to sign autographs and have pics taken with fans for a price. The dozens and dozens of such fan confabs across the nation each year can be very lucrative for genre actors, with some making $12,000 to $25,000 s day and even more depending on the show and their individual appeal.
Hannah-Kim opted not to press charges but requested an informational police report be taken, along with photos for the record for what police described as a “very noticeable bite mark on her arm that was already turning blue and bruising,” TMZ reports.
Police told Kove he needed to leave the venue after the report was filed.
Deadline has contacted representatives for Kove, and Hannah-Kim, but neither has responded.
News of the incident at the event spread quickly among attendees, we are told. “It was all handled pretty quickly on site, and was over before you knew it,” an individual with knowledge of the events at Washington State Summer Con told Deadline today.
Kove and Hannah-Kim were part of a group of Cobra Kai talent attending the star studded Summer Con over the weekend, Mary Mouser, Tanner Buchanan, Rayna Vallandingham and Patrick Luwis also participated. A huge but somewhat under the radar event for years, Summer Con 2025 also included the the likes of the Daredevil: Born Again cast, original Star Trek stars like William Shatner and Walter Koenig, and wrestling legend Chris Jericho.
Kove played John Kreese, the temperamental sensei in the original three Karate Kid films, reprising the role in Netflix’s Cobra Kai alongside Ralph Macchio and William Zabka across the show’s six seasons. Hannah-Kim joined the Cobra Kai cast in Season 5 as South Korean sensei Kim Da-Eun, remaining with the cast for the remainder of the series.
