The Challenge Battle For a New Champion Episode 9 Recap: 10 Biggest Takeaways
The 9th 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 10 Biggest moments/takeaways from the 9th Episode.
If you prefer audio/video, my podcast recap can be found above/below.
10 Daily Challenge Bullshit
If you don’t have an even number of men and women, don’t do a co-ed pair daily challenge! Or at least find a way to ensure everyone competing is on the same playing field. Personally, I think they should have had a schoolyard pick where the men drafted female partners for the daily challenge, and whichever woman didn’t get picked should’ve gotten automatic immunity as a creative twist.
The daily challenge wasn’t fun to watch because the team of 3 won mainly due to their numbers advantage. Now, it did help massively that the team of three consisted of the two fastest women in the house (Zara & Ravyn). Regardless, it wasn’t an impressive win for them because, of course, three people can carry more weight than two, and of course, when they all have to run less, they’ll all be less winded. It was slightly interesting to watch three people vote someone in, which meant two could overpower one, which is what played out.
9 Melissa Voted in Yet Again
Everyone was seemingly shocked that it was a women’s elimination day. Although male-female had been the rotation the last four episodes, as we saw in the daily, we have 9 women and 8 men, so a female elimination to even up the numbers makes sense.
Zara tried to keep Melissa from being the direct nomination; sadly, Ravyn had the foolproof argument that Melissa had just thrown a full drink at her less than 48 hours ago. At that point, Zara conceded. Asaf was full-on shady in their little winner’s deliberation as he was supposed to look out for Melissa and instead hoped Ravyn would bully her way into naming her.
What I didn’t understand is why Zara was the one who came out and said they were nominating Melissa for elimination. If I were Zara, I would keep quiet and force Ravyn or Asaf to be the one who says it because it’s a move she wasn’t trying to make.
8 Kyland vs. Asaf
One of the few intriguing things to come out of the daily challenge was everyone’s sabotage of Kyland, thinking it would be a guy’s elimination. Kyland was rightfully feeling a bit salty, so when Asaf moved against his showmance, he took it as his opportunity to take a shot at Asaf. Kyland exposed both Asaf’s broken to Melissa by evoking Asaf’s wife, saying she won’t be happy to see what he did to a fellow mother in the game. It was an out-of-pocket statement by Kyland that had me hollering.
Since Big Brother, I’ve been waiting to see this version of Kyland on The Challenge. He had Asaf seeing red, and the best part is that Kyland won the interaction because Asaf came back at him by saying, “Don’t say anything about my mother!” When Kyland said nothing about his mother. It was a low blow by Kyland, yet Asaf has been playing a shady game all season.
Melissa looked so attracted and proud of Kyland during the scene. Melissa saw a man ready to get dirty and fight just like she does.
7 Melissa vs. Asaf
Asaf is a bad player. Every week, he touts how the international alliance does not know he is part of the U.S. alliance. Well, the international alliance is now becoming non-existent, and some U.S. cast members don’t know you’re part of their alliance. Which is a significant reason why Corey Lay tossed him into elimination as he didn’t think people would care if Asaf was going on. That same thing could happen again. Jay, Michele, and Nurys have been using Asaf for information without the veil of protection they all have from their alliance.
On top of being used by the U.S. alliance, Asaf clearly misconstrued how close he was with Corey, and now, with Melissa, he made unnecessary promises to her that he broke. Asaf is too extra and messy about the way he plays the game.
At the club, Melissa wasn’t even willing to fight with him fully as she realized mentally that the guy couldn’t go toe-to-toe with her. Fighting with Asaf wasn’t even a fun exercise for Melissa.
6 Emanuel is just a liar
I support Polidicking on The Challenge. Emanuel’s showmance with Tori was crucial towards earning him screentime and almost getting him to the Final on Spies, Lies & Allies. I don’t support cheating; however, as a fan of messy Reality TV, affairs are always an interesting wrinkle to the show. Emanuel is doing both as he’s had stuff going on with Colleen, Olivia, and Ravyn AND has made advances on other women in the house, like Melissa.
What’s shitty is that Emanuel pretends that he’s only here to compete and win for his family. No, you’re not, Emanuel. You are a good competitor, but you’re also trying to fuck anything that moves, and you’re cheating on your girlfriend. You’re also trying to be sly about it by asking Colleen to do it off-camera. So you know what you’re doing; you’re just lying to the camera and everyone in general.
I feel bad for Colleen getting used as she seems like a nice person. Then again, she has to know getting into bed with a guy who has a girlfriend is a terrible idea. Colleen quietly ending things with him and not putting him on blast so that they don’t put targets on themselves was a kind move towards him and a smart move for her. He should be grateful that she didn’t fully air him out.
5 Moriah’s Mess
Last week, I mentioned how Moriah played an interesting game where she had her alliance while maintaining friendships throughout the house. This week, Moriah’s name came up because that gameplay style put a target on her. Moriah built genuine connections with James & Zara and will look out for them. Ultimately, I do believe Moriah is loyal to her alliance and her own game. If she can, though, she will look out for the people close to her. I don’t judge Moriah for that.
Others, like Olivia, will and have been judging. Shoutout to Michele for standing by Moriah when her alliance talked about throwing her in. That was Michele being a real friend and knowing that tossing in Moriah could lead to some numbers in the game flipping. If a core alliance member gets tossed in, trust in the alliance breaks, and we might suddenly see Moriah linking up with people to make a move against them.
4 Artificial Sweetener Olivia
Last season, I was absolutely in love with Olivia and was excited to see her take the mantle as the face of the franchise entering this season. While Olivia is in a good spot gamewise, has been consistently featured in confessionals, and has an excellent shot of making it to the Finals, she has been completely underwhelming as a character and player this season.
On Ride or Dies, Olivia felt fresh, fun, authentic, and willing to make bad choices. That was the character I enjoyed, and now the version of Olivia I’m watching feels painfully generic, boring, and fake. Now, she’s defending Johnny Bananas a little too much when Moriah is also her friend, is very focused on the alliance staying within itself, and every confessional from her is beginning to feel contrived. Whenever we hear Olivia’s thoughts on the game politically, it’s always the safest and most boring gameplay style. I understand Olivia doesn’t feel the need to play risky as she’s at the top of the pyramid — at the same time, there’s only one winner, and I’m not sure she’s a viable threat with certain people she’s allied with remaining in the game.
Additionally, I’ve made fun of Tori Deal for years for her over-the-top “pretending to be shocked” reaction faces. I take over 100+ screenshots of every episode for my blogs. Olivia’s face is always “shocked 1–3 seconds before all other cast members whenever TJ drops any information bomb, sometimes even the most insignificant ones. Maybe it’s just Olivia has excellent hearing, far better than the rest of the cast.
I still have high hopes for Olivia. Unfortunately, nine episodes in, she ranks near the bottom when it comes to entertainment for female cast members on this show, which is shocking considering this was a season for her to peacock with no champs around. In this second half of the season, I want to see Olivia play the game for herself, not her alliance, get into some actual direct conflict, and win a comp where she stands out as a legitimate threat to win this game.
3 Voting Deliberation & Tori’s Entrance
Congratulations to Colleen for not saying anything dumb at the deliberation. It’s a rare and remarkable feat for this season. Still, she got cleanly voted into elimination by everyone except Emanuel and Nurys. Emanuel’s vote was an apology, and I thought Nurys’s vote was a sly way to get in Colleen’s good graces on the off-occasion she comes back and wins a daily challenge.
When TJ brought out Tori at the arena, he hyped her up as one of the greatest to ever play the game. Now, I was caught off guard by this. I was expecting to see Laurel or Cara Maria — so when Tori came out, I was a little disappointed. Even though I got caught off guard, in reality, Tori is one of the best competitors in Challenge History. Tori is a Champion and a 6x Finalist, and that’s nothing to scoff at. There might be fewer than five 6x Female Finalists in Challenge history. With all the spin-offs they’re counting now, I’m unsure of the exact amount these days.
2 Glass House Owner Throws Stones
I understand Tori is friends with Bananas, so she felt obligated to call Moriah out on her showmance with James. At the same time, Tori is not one to speak about cheating in The Challenge house, when she entered Dirty 30 in a relationship with Derrick Henry and then cheated on him with Jordan. And while Tori technically never cheated on Jordan with Fessy, some of the timelines of events get a bit fuzzy, so I won’t accuse her of that, as others will. Likewise, I won’t call Moriah a cheater, as she and Bananas never had an official label.
Even if we take the “cheating” aspect out of all of it and say Tori is telling Moriah not to have a showmance to keep her head in the game, then that’s also horseshit.
Every MTV Challenge season, she’s had at least one thing going on:
Dirty 30: Dating Derrick, left with Jordan.
Final Reckoning: This is the only season without any on-screen showmances, but she was dating Jordan.
War of the Worlds 2: On-screen dating Jordan and got engaged.
Total Madness: On-screen engaged to Jordan.
Double Agents: Engaged/breaking up with Jordan and then some clear flirting with Fessy.
Spies, Lies & Allies: Hooked up with Kelz early and had a showmance with Emanuel after Kelz/Michele got eliminated.
Ride or Dies: Hooked up with Jordan and was apparently all over Horacio, except it wasn’t part of the edit to play up her & Jordan’s storyline.
I’m not saying this as a means to shame Tori because I fucking love showmances and Challenge hookups. Tori has done a phenomenal job proving you can be an elite competitor while having fun and romance in a Challenge house. It’s just ridiculous that Tori, of all people, is calling out Moriah.
1 Melissa vs. Tori (Has The Mercenary Twist Helped?)
As we saw during a daily challenge earlier this season, Melissa is not the strongest diver. Tori is a strong swimmer who has won swimming & diving challenges in the best. Melissa tried her best and fought well, but Tori proved why she is a Champion and won decisively.
Melissa has been a fireball all season and carried the last few weeks with all her fights and drama. Now that she’s gone, it’s another entertaining cast member out the door via mercenary. It’s fucking frustrating.
The mercenary entrances are always exciting and fun and have led to an increase in viewership after the first few weeks. Yet, we’ve now lost Melissa, Big T, Callum, and Ciarran from these eliminations. Melissa & Big T were public enemies #1 and 2, bringing a lot of drama & storylines. I believe Ciarran and Callum were the two most charismatic men on the show with competitive ability. All four are now eliminated, and no one individual in the game can say they were the person who took them out. So now we’ve lost entertaining cast members, money to the winner’s pot, and have a cast full of people lacking accomplishments. The mercenary did help keep this show from the ratings plummeting more — I’m not sure if we have the firepower left for a great show.
