My understanding of where this would be used, e.g. a fighter on your tail and nothing else is working to get them off, pulling the cobra uses the sudden loss of speed to your advantage, in that the attacker will zoom by so fast (with a real risk of mid air collision) then recovery from the cobra can put you a position to get on the tail of the attacker.

Kind of like a squatter in traffic.. if you got a car in front of you that can stop significantly faster than you, your only choice is to either hit them or evasive maneuver to go around them.

Now an attack plane reacting fast enough pull a cobra as soon that the chased plane did, that would be quite a dance.. if they don't mid-air....