The Challenge Battle For a New Champion Episode 5 Recap: 5 Biggest Takeaways

Straight up, I have had a crazy hectic work week. I’ve slept probably 10–11 hours in the last three days. So you’re getting a very abbreviated recap. I hope to have more time next week.

The 5th Episode of The Challenge Battle For a New Champion is in the books. You probably have some thoughts, so let’s compare. Instead of giving a simple summary, I decided to focus on the 5 Biggest moments/takeaways from the 5th Episode.

If you prefer audio/video, my podcast recap can be found above/below.

5 Level 2 Chaos

Some notes on Level 2. First, the Last Place finisher in daily challenges should go into elimination. It’s the same drum we all keep beating as fans. If Last Place has to go into elimination, everyone starts competing much harder, and nobody can purely coast behind an alliance. Plus, any daily with random partnerships becomes fun as you get to watch two random players try to adapt and work together. If they’re part of different alliances, they may sabotage one another or win and disagree! Drama aplenty.

We somewhat got that this week as Corey and Ravyn dominated the daily challenge, largely due to Corey’s size, and then they had to figure out who they were throwing in. We’ll talk more about that in a bit. The daily challenge would have been great if they showed the exact final score of each team after they went. Instead, we had to roughly guess how some teams were doing and then got told that Corey & Ravyn won in a blowout fashion by a number that we never even got to see. It was clear Corey & Ravyn won, but it would have been nice to see by how much.

4 Corey vs. Asaf

With all the American men off the board and Ravyn protecting Ciarran due to their showmance, it came down to Emanuel and Asaf. Corey protected Emanuel on the sheer basis that they did SLA together. In the end, Corey picked Asaf because he didn’t think Asaf brought much to the table besides his loyalty. Loyalty is important, yet for Corey, it didn’t matter if Asaf didn’t have numbers or the ability to win challenges to help him.

I don’t blame Asaf for getting mad, though. He clearly thought he and Corey were much closer than they were, and it bit him in the ass. Asaf assumed he’d be safe from getting targeted because he blurred the lines between the Americans and internationals. In reality, it put him in a no-man’s land. Watching someone get salty and react emotionally to getting tossed into elimination was a fun throwback.

3 Horacio & Olivia

Hot ass couple.

2 Vote-In’s

It feels like the Americans are going to steamroll the rest of their way through this game if the voting format stays the same from here. I despise the majority vote format in a game with no Last Place going directly into elimination penalty, as it means so many people get to coast.

Ciarran got thrown in as the strongest international guy. While The Challenge is a political game, the deck got stacked against Ciarran with this format/cast, and then with the twist, he got hit with Uno +4 Card that is Jordan Wiseley.

1 The Legend Twist

Jordan was the perfect first mercenary to bring on. Obviously, MTV will wait as long as they can to pull the trigger on CT & Cara to try and bait as many viewers in as long as they can. However, you need to make a statement with the first mercenary, and there is no more significant statement than bringing in Jordan — one of the greatest players ever to compete (Kyland and I would say the best) and the recent winner of The Global Championship.

Not only is Jordan a 4x Champion, but he’s a showman who takes pride in competing. Jordan is the perfect person to bring in, lay a smackdown, and show the competitors what they need to bring to this show.

The actual elimination between Jordan and Ciarran was fantastic. The elimination was like a free-range Hall Brawl mixed with an endurance comp with an added strategic element. Ciarran is a very good competitor with great endurance and speed. Which is why when Jordan adjusted and figured out the strategy portion of this elimination, it made all so tough/exciting to watch. Jordan is such an outstanding athlete. Jordan’s ability to change direction and accelerate is legitimately near the level of some pro athletes. As hard as Ciarran tried, Jordan dominated him physically and mentally by the end. Watching Jordan literally yell out/count out the points was such a cocky/badass move. It’s why Jordan is the perfect mercenary because he understands this is both a TV show and a competition.

Seeing Ciarran get knocked out here stinks because he is a great player and one of the more charismatic men in the house. At the same time, the Jordan performance was electric. I hope we see both these men again, and I’m excited for the upcoming mercenaries. Hopefully, we will see people make some big moves, knowing it’s a great chance to knock out some power players.