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The Challenge: North America's fifth sport (spoilers within)


DanteGabriel

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12 hours ago, dbunting said:

I was pulling for Big T in that final but it wasn't meant to be. I loved it when Fessy got stolen again, serves him right and I hope he has to stay w her and she out does him in the final. Would love to see him gas out again and his "weak " partner do better than him.

With CT being rogue he should be safe this next week so Kyle has to win. Would be great if he did and got Leroy vs Fessy with Fessy going home.

That would still leave four teams and they generally do the final with three, so a double the week after or still two more weeks before the final?

 

It's funny how poorly timed my rooting-for-Big T post was, but it did seem like she came out pretty happy with what she accomplished. She was the most entertaining and least personally awful person on the show. The Big T and CT show was awesome, even if CT turned heel for part of it.

I'm not gonna lie, I was thinking that episode was going to come down to Fessy and CT in elimination, since they'd spent some time hyping the "young buck vs old alpha" sort of dynamic between them. It would have been a great match.

I also think it'll be three in the final, so they have to get rid of two guys and one girl before that. I'd expect a guy's elimination and then a double elimination. CT was crowing like he was in the final because he was rogue, but I don't think he's safe yet. The least physically imposing guys are Kyle and Cory, I think, but Cory is protected by being Kam's partner -- I don't see Fessy+Amber B or Kyle+Nany winning an elimination, but Nothing Is as It Seems in the Challenge, as TJ likes to remind us.

 

10 hours ago, briantw said:

I started watching an older season of the show that I've never seen before, Fresh Meat.  It's teams of two and the elimination round basically has the teams going on a hike, but the twist is they have to carry weight in bags equal to the weight of the luggage they brought with them on the trip.

So far, I'm like five eliminations in and Wes and his partner have been in every one and won them all.  Everyone always hated Wes apparently.  

I went and looked up this season because in my mind, "Fresh Meat" was like 6-8 years ago, but wow it was like 15. Some Challenge franchise vets started there, like Kenny and Evan (exiled and in disgrace) and Ev and Diem.

I never knew Wes was on the Real World. He'd always just been that sneaky guy who thinks he's cleverer than he is on the Challenge. I guess his RW season was in those years when I wasn't paying much attention to MTV, and I didn't have a DVR yet so I'd have to watch that kind of shit live, or in reruns (which MTV was pretty good about back then).

 

10 hours ago, dbunting said:

I finished Rivals 3(?) recently and damn...I mean I understand why the person did what they did but damn.

I will say one thing, no other reality show has as rough of a final challenge as this show does. Others may be harder over all (Alone) but this show kills them for the final challenge.

Was that Bananas and Sarah? Yeah. Brutal. You can tell real life damage was done there.

Spoiler

Also I thought Bananas saying he owed Sarah some revenge because she voted him into an elimination was some bullshit. It's the same kind of shit he would have done to someone else if he was in that spot.

The whole show, and especially the Final, became much more serious from an athletic and endurance standpoint, what, seven or eight years ago? Probably about the time Big E washed out.

I see they are running promos for this "All Stars" season coming up and Big E is back, but since I don't plan to subscribe to Discovery+ I'm not sure how much I'll be able to keep up.

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2 hours ago, briantw said:

The All Stars cast feels like it's really lacking some of the names I most associate with The Challenge like Bananas, Wes, CT, and Cara Maria.

I looked at the cast list, because even in previews that did not look like an "all star" cast. It's more like a Pro Bowl cast where the three or four best players at any position have opted out or are still in the postseason so you end up with Andy Dalton, Pro Bowl QB. Most of the cast is Andy Dalton level at best.

Besides Darrell and Aneesa, almost none of those people have been on the show in at least 3 years. And not many of them were very relevant. I mean, Beth S, really? She was dead weight 10 years ago.

Alton, Darrell, and Derrick I remember as good competitors. The rest either weren't that impressive or I don't remember them.

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Yeah, my daughter has Paramount+ right now so I have been watching old seasons and so far haven't bothered with the All stars. I mean some of these people sucked 10 seasons ago and they are considered All stars? Call them O.G's if you want, would be more accurate.

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1 hour ago, DanteGabriel said:

I looked at the cast list, because even in previews that did not look like an "all star" cast. It's more like a Pro Bowl cast where the three or four best players at any position have opted out or are still in the postseason so you end up with Andy Dalton, Pro Bowl QB. Most of the cast is Andy Dalton level at best.

Besides Darrell and Aneesa, almost none of those people have been on the show in at least 3 years. And not many of them were very relevant. I mean, Beth S, really? She was dead weight 10 years ago.

Alton, Darrell, and Derrick I remember as good competitors. The rest either weren't that impressive or I don't remember them.

Derrick was always one of the best competitors.  I remember one season where he had to go in to basically every elimination because he was his team's captain and the captain had to face someone else from the team after a loss.  He took out basically every guy on the team before he got screwed with a bad elimination spin and had to do a reverse tug-o-war with a guy twice his size.  He had a pretty epic elimination of Bananas too a few years back.

I would have liked to see them bring Abram back in addition to the names I listed above.  And a few more high-profile women from recent memory like Laurel or Theresa.  I'd say Camilla but I think she's been banned from the show for being racist.  She was always one of the more entertaining women, though, because she was a beast in the challenges and she was also absolutely batshit insane.  Sarah is another name I'd love to see back but I can understand why she's probably never coming back.

But yeah, overall calling this season All-Stars is a bit of a stretch.  I don't even recognize a few of them.  With that being said, they might have left off some of the current crop of guys because they would have ran all over a lot of these geezers. 

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Also, I assume that at some point these people have to get actual jobs that pay the bills, retirement, health care etc. and have families of their own that prevent them from being able to go away for a month or two. 

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2 hours ago, briantw said:

Derrick was always one of the best competitors.  I remember one season where he had to go in to basically every elimination because he was his team's captain and the captain had to face someone else from the team after a loss.  He took out basically every guy on the team before he got screwed with a bad elimination spin and had to do a reverse tug-o-war with a guy twice his size.  He had a pretty epic elimination of Bananas too a few years back.

Oh yeah, I remember that season. He was my favorite Challenge person for a while because of that.

 

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I would have liked to see them bring Abram back in addition to the names I listed above. 

Abram and Cara Maria and Paulie would be a fun mix. The dick-measuring would never end.

 

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And a few more high-profile women from recent memory like Laurel or Theresa.  

Or Ev, or Paula. Not the strongest crop of women competitors.

 

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But yeah, overall calling this season All-Stars is a bit of a stretch.  I don't even recognize a few of them.  With that being said, they might have left off some of the current crop of guys because they would have ran all over a lot of these geezers. 

Calling them OGs as previously suggested would be more accurate. Maybe Bananas is taking a break for a while.

 

2 hours ago, dbunting said:

Also, I assume that at some point these people have to get actual jobs that pay the bills, retirement, health care etc. and have families of their own that prevent them from being able to go away for a month or two. 

A lot of them now are becoming influencers and shit. Didn't Wes make reference to some business of his?

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2 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

Oh yeah, I remember that season. He was my favorite Challenge person for a while because of that.

 

Abram and Cara Maria and Paulie would be a fun mix. The dick-measuring would never end.

 

 

 

Calling them OGs as previously suggested would be more accurate. Maybe Bananas is taking a break for a while.

 

 

To the first comment, I am actually watching that now, not literally but I am about half way through that season.

How about a four team sleeze fest season? All the guys Cara slept with on one team, all Bananas girls on another, then whoever else got around a lot, maybe Kyle, but he's be on team Cara too?

As to Bananas he is hosting some travel show on NBC called first look. If that does well I can't imagine him ever doing a challenge again.

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In the episode I'm watching now, the challenge is that there are two teams.  The players on each team are weighed individually.  They then have a period of time to eat as much as possible.  The team that gains the most weight moves on to phase two, where they have to do wind sprints.

I can't overstate it enough.  This show is amazing. 

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18 hours ago, briantw said:

In the episode I'm watching now, the challenge is that there are two teams.  The players on each team are weighed individually.  They then have a period of time to eat as much as possible.  The team that gains the most weight moves on to phase two, where they have to do wind sprints.

I can't overstate it enough.  This show is amazing. 

I remember that one, talk about being savage. Again, most brutal of the shows I watch.

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19 minutes ago, dbunting said:

I remember that one, talk about being savage. Again, most brutal of the shows I watch.

Whenever I have to explain what this show is to friends, I usually say it's about a former professional BMX rider who travels the world and tortures bipolar alcoholics. 

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2 hours ago, briantw said:

Whenever I have to explain what this show is to friends, I usually say it's about a former professional BMX rider who travels the world and tortures bipolar alcoholics. 

That is pretty damn accurate and yet also tells you nothing! 

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4 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

I thought Fessy had run out of ways to make me cringe but reading that letter out loud was a new dimension of oblivious douchebaggery.

Yeah that was just silly. I wonder how these people feel as they watch these episodes? Like they edited to show all the others rolling their eyes at him and making snide comments, does he see this and think damn I need to grow or does he see it and think they are just haters?

Nice somewhat of a twist yesterday with having 4 teams go to the final and knowing one of them will be cut the first day of it.

Teams, Leroy might be better off with Nany because she is good with math and puzzles, not great but good.

Fessy and Kaycee, I hate this because I like Kaycee. They may struggle with puzzles and eating, and he may gas out again on the endurance parts.

Cam and Kory, pretty solid team all around. She is good running and puzzles and math. He isn't good with puzzles, so she helps him. 

CT and ? can't remember her name. Probably cut after day one unless one of the other teams shits the bed on a puzzle, surprise swim or eating challenge. 

I really thought Leroy and Cam were gonna find a way to team up yesterday. She goes down and Kory gets eliminated and she steals Leroy... but maybe they are hedging their bets by staying on separate teams. Could've been Cam - Leroy team,  CT team, Fessy team, Kyle team.  I like their odds against them

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On 4/5/2021 at 9:01 PM, dbunting said:

Wes has pretty much always been hated.

He has, but its interesting to see how he's changed from that first season to other early seasons and then to where things stand now.

In Fresh Meat he came in being a jerk to everyone, including his partner, with zero social game.  Was a physical force (and possibly on steroids that season and/or other early seasons, given how different he looked from when he was on the Real World?) but didn't even try to make friends with anybody outside of the other people from Austin. 

In the seasons after that, kept up the good performance in challenges but also really turned up the social element and became the manipulative slimeball of the show.  I definitely cheered for him (and CT) for a stretch of time because it seemed like they were the only ones who had a real chance against the Johnny, Evan, Kenny alliance that dominated for a while.

Now he's still good at things like swimming, but otherwise totally outclassed physically.  Still enjoy when he can get control of the game, like when he and Bananas teamed up a couple of seasons ago.  But seems like a lot of the new people are aware of his game and unwilling to let that happen now.

Side note - I hated the elimination in Fresh Meat - was just the same thing over and over every episode and got kind of boring.

 

On 4/6/2021 at 7:50 AM, DanteGabriel said:

I see they are running promos for this "All Stars" season coming up and Big E is back, but since I don't plan to subscribe to Discovery+ I'm not sure how much I'll be able to keep up.

 

On 4/6/2021 at 11:45 AM, briantw said:

The All Stars cast feels like it's really lacking some of the names I most associate with The Challenge like Bananas, Wes, CT, and Cara Maria.

I'd definitely like to watch it, but yeah - totally agree with both of you.  Don't want to subscribe to Paramount+ (I think its on that) just for this (and Champions League soccer is on there too, I guess). 

And the cast they ended up getting is a huge letdown.  I saw Mark Long talking about getting people together for an OGs show, and when it was originally being discussed the potential cast list was pretty exciting.  I didn't pay attention to it in the months after that, but somehow it morphed from getting all of the old elite players together into this group, which is super underwhelming.  Its a huge miss by them. 

The only people who I'd call All-Stars are Mark, Alton, Darrell, and Derrick among the men, and Ruthie, Kendal, and maybe KellyAnne among the women.  And some of those are stretching it - not sure Kendal even competed in more than 1-2 seasons.  There are a few others I wouldn't mind seeing, just because they're really old school like Yes and Laterrian.  But would have strongly preferred a real All-Star competition.

 

35 minutes ago, dbunting said:

Teams, Leroy might be better off with Nany because she is good with math and puzzles, not great but good.

Fessy and Kaycee, I hate this because I like Kaycee. They may struggle with puzzles and eating, and he may gas out again on the endurance parts.

Cam and Kory, pretty solid team all around. She is good running and puzzles and math. He isn't good with puzzles, so she helps him. 

CT and ? can't remember her name. Probably cut after day one unless one of the other teams shits the bed on a puzzle, surprise swim or eating challenge. 

I really thought Leroy and Cam were gonna find a way to team up yesterday. She goes down and Kory gets eliminated and she steals Leroy... but maybe they are hedging their bets by staying on separate teams. Could've been Cam - Leroy team,  CT team, Fessy team, Kyle team.  I like their odds against them

Yeah I was kind of surprised that Leroy didn't step up.  I get that he didn't want to be eliminated right before the final, but the point is to win, right?  That last elimination basically came down to a choice of either (1) risk going home, but if you win then you get to team up with Kaycee, or (2) stay safe but you're with Nany or Amber.  Since the ultimate goal is to win the final, think the right strategic move there is to do everything you can to stay with Kaycee.  I know he's friends with Nany and she's okay in some things, but I don't think she's even close to being on the same level overall.

The thing I'm wondering is if he's maybe making a bet on there being no teams in the final?  Would be a twist if they separate everyone, either for the whole thing or halfway through after eliminating one team.  I could see it maybe happening, and honestly I think I'd probably favor that over sticking with the teams.  I know the whole season has been with everyone paired up, and I've liked it a lot, especially with all of the backstabbing and partner switching.  It was a great concept and I hope they continue with similar mechanics in the future.  But in the final.....tend to prefer people sinking or swimming on their own merit.

I'm also probably a bit biased, because I can't stand Fessy and don't want him to win with Kaycee.  Cheering for Leroy or Corey among the guys, and Kam among the girls.

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Oh one more thing.  Kyle was hilarious this season.  He's so much better without the Cara Maria + Paulie drama. 

I'm glad Kam didn't screw over Corey.  But sucks that Kyle ended up in the crosshairs and that he went out with an injury (though he probably didn't have a chance against Fessy in Hall Brawl regardless.....he got destroyed on that first run through).

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I got a free week of Paramount+, hence the binging old seasons.  I'm watching episode two of All-Stars right now, though, and it's hilarious.  They do trivia and TJ's glee when people go into the water is infectious.  

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33 minutes ago, Whiskeyjack said:

I'm glad Kam didn't screw over Corey.  But sucks that Kyle ended up in the crosshairs and that he went out with an injury (though he probably didn't have a chance against Fessy in Hall Brawl regardless.....he got destroyed on that first run through).

Yeah, Kyle should have known he was going in no matter what anyone said. I think he was probably happy to have an injury to get him out of facing Fessy two more times. Tears were of joy not pain!

 

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