Stage 1 is not kind to short people, is it? Between the propeller and the warped wall, those extra few inches can make or break you.
(Sorry it took me so long to get back. No reason, just got caught up in other things.)
Here’s another one of those stats: 23 runs weren’t shown at all, including four men who cleared it (Mike Meyers, Dan Yager, Jason Williams, Thomas Stillings). Even if you’re fine with there being no prize structure and all you want is recognition, it looks like a crapshoot. I still find it a bit disconcerting that it’s not until the very last episode of the season that we see all the action.
Max - I don’t have the energy for a full rebuttal, so I’ll just leave this out there: How is it that the field has simply gotten so much better, as you put it? Remember, no one’s made a penny off of this so far, so for the most part it’s amateurs and part-timers…where’s this new influx of superstars coming from? 2014 certainly didn’t lack for powerful contenders, including the most rock climbers of any season to date. 18 of them finished Stage 1. 38 did this year. Seems pretty clear to me.
The reason there were so few failures on Warped Wall because the obstacles leading up to it were so freaking hard. Remember Hourglass Drop? I’ve said it at least twice that Warped Wall should be right after Quintuple Steps because it’s become the second easiest task.
And if you’re going the sample-size-of-one route, what about Anthony Scott, who got hung up very badly on Propeller Bar and still made it? Or Kevin Bull, who probably took more chances than he should have and still had the third best time.
As for why NBC would want a winner, well, I’d say the key motivating factor has to be quiet desperation. Remember, this is a competitive reality TV show, and from a presentation standpoint that means positive, positive, positive, positive. Great and good and wonderful and beautiful and successful and triumphant and happy and strong and vibrant. I’m now firmly convinced that the only reason there’s a 6-obstacle qualifying round at all is so the announcers can point to someone who has no hope in the Finals and say “See? He completed the course! He succeeded!” (And of course, if it’s someone who went out on Stage 2 or 3 last year, be sure to point out that he’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.) But by having no prize structure, heck, not even a PGA-style exemptions system, with the result being that each and every competitor has won exactly jack sqaut, they really painted themselves into a corner. You can only hype up Team USA representation and number of trips to Stage 2 before it dawns on them that national pride and beeh daah waaw chants don’t pay the bills.
Besides, you gotta have someone win the big one eventually if the contest is to have any legitimacy. If no one ever won the million on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, you think it would’ve become a pop culture icon?
So no, lots of Stage 1 success certainly doesn’t guarantee anything, but definitely a start. If nothing else, they won’t have to waste time setting up Stage 3 for a measly one or two guys.
American Ninja experts,
One time their was a guy who was also a Harlem Globetrotter. How well did he do?
Bull Bullard timed out on Stage 1 at the cargo net, so he was very close to finishing. Overall, I think he did really well, especially for a tall, heavy (by ANW standards) non-obstacle trained athlete.
My theory, and I don’t know for a fact that this is true, is that a vastly higher percentage of competitors now than in years past have access to ninja gyms, backyard courses, or other training facilities specifically for ninja obstacles. So the reason so few people fall on the warped wall is that the vast majority have already practiced it and learned how to do it, compared to, say, 3 or 4 years ago.
WWTBAM became a hit before anyone won the million.
I just hope NBC doesn’t do what it did with Deal or No Deal, and announce pretty much at the beginning of the episode that someone would win the million dollars that night.
Disappointing to see Brett S and Brian A fail.
Also the guy who failed on the very last jump
Glad two people made it to stage 4.
Congrats to Isaac! Hope Geoff got something for finishing stage 4.
Brian
[For multiple personal reasons I won’t air out here, I won’t be able to record tonight’s broadcast, and I’ll probably only be able to see snippets of it, so no big analysis until the repeat on Saturday. For now, I’ll just respond to BeepKillBeep.]
Bull Bullard looked all right in his first outing. He didn’t quite get to the buzzer at City Finals, but he was still in Stage 1, where he was maybe 10 seconds from hitting the buzzer (so it wasn’t that close). The second go around, he got hung up on one of the upper-body grinders…Ring Toss or Monkey Peg, IIRC…and went down. That’s the last anyone’s seen of him.
I also remember an NFL defensive tackle or whoever who finished the qualifying course but in 31st, so he was out. I’m pretty sure this was the main reason NBC changed the rule so that everyone making it to the end goes to City Finals. I’ve never seen him again either.
It’s nice to be offbeat, but the harsh bottom line is that you have to be totally focused to have ANY shot of reaching the end, so for the most part, the quirky ones don’t stick around very long. I haven’t heard a peep about Tuxedo Speedo, and there’s a good chance The Adonis and The Baby won’t be around next year. Kind hoping Reko Rivera gives it another shot. He’s fun to watch.
Don’t know if I’ve posted this before, but does it seem as if some of the competitors could brush up on their Physics a bit? When you’re trying to swing your body to get momentum to cross a gap, you’re acting as a pendulum. When you’re swinging from a fixed object (like from the Salmon Ladder to the Unstable Bridge), your swing will have a certain frequency (say, 1 swing per second). When you’re on a moving obstacle (like getting off the Unstable Bridge), you’ve become a longer pendulum which will have a lower frequency (maybe 1 swing every 2 seconds). I saw competitors get trapped on the first wheel of Roulette Row and it seemed like they couldn’t start swinging because they were trying to go too fast. It’s easy to criticize from my living room, but could it make a difference; could you get a swing started on one of those moving obstacles if you timed it right?
There’s also the Butterfly Wall. If you’re going to hang on to that as it completes a full circle, keep your weight as close to the center as you can until you have to grab the rope. The further out you are, the slower it will turn. Every second counts.
Total focus is clearly not required, as a guy who doesn’t really train (because he works a full time job and has a family with young kids) just finished stage 4. Not quite fast enough to win any money, but still.
Almost certainly not, for a couple reasons. First the odd angle and the huge distance between them means you’d need to generate a ton of momentum. Second, they spin, so the more you swing on them the more momentum the spin absorbs.
They are essentially shock absorbers.
They’re no more shock absorbers than a set of playground swings are. If you shift your weight back and forth, you can make a swing go higher, but you have to time it right.
I think it could work on the ANW obstacles too. Time your swing with the spin of the wheel, as if you’re a single pendulum swinging from the wheel hub. Now, maybe you wouldn’t be able to get enough amplitude before your grip gave out, but I’d like to see someone try it.
My theory is that these guys are all accustomed to swinging from their hands, like a gymnast hanging from a high bar. But try that same technique on the Unstable Bridge and it won’t work; throw your weight forward too fast and you’re just pushing the bridge backwards. Don’t think about swinging from your hands, think about swinging from that point up above the bridge where the chain is connected to the scaffolding.
Swings only work because they’re vertical. The angled spinning wheels act as shock absorbers because they’re not vertical.
That was pretty awesome.
Here’s a quote from this interview with the executive producer:
Q: What can you tell us about the USA vs. the World special this year?
A: It’s a similar format with a Japan and European team. We also did an All-Stars special. So it’s the favorite All-Star Ninjas — females and males both — and there’s a head-to-head challenge and there’s a skills challenge. We have a Warped Wall that goes up to 22 feet. How far can they jump? How far can they get up the wall? There’s a giant peg board and we see how fast they can get around it. It’s very exciting.
That sounds pretty exciting… I wish I knew when it was on.
The interview also says pretty clearly that Geoff Britten got nothing. I wonder if Isaac and Geoff made an agreement ahead of time to split the prize in some fashion. Competing for $800K vs $200K seems a lot better than competing for $1M vs nothing.
The wheels aren’t perfectly vertical, but there’s a vertical component to the rotation. I think it would work if they could keep their body and the wheel in sync rather than working against one another.
It would actually be testable if we had a little practical building ability. Imagine something like a frisbee affixed to a block of wood such that the frisbee was at an angle similar to the obstacle, and could freely spin. Attach a short rope (maybe like two or three inches) to the edge of the frisbee with a small weight on the end. With only smacking the dangling weight with your finger, can you get the weight to swing 90 degrees in either direction? As I envision it, my answer is no, it would not be possible.
I have a feeling there’s something in their contracts that says that if they make any sort of deal, then both of them get nothing.
The interview also says that Geoff “got to be one of the first American Ninja Warriors,” but if you look at the trophy Isaac is holding at the end, it says that Isaac is the “first American Ninja Warrior.” There already appears to be some “discussion” about who the “first ANW” is - Geoff, for being the first to complete Midoriyama, or Isaac, for being the first winner? For that matter, is Geoff “officially” an ANW at all? (Of course, what they say “now” and what they say “eventually” can be two different things. Personally, I say Geoff is.)
In my mind, the $1,000,000 prize is for winning the season. The title of American Ninja Warrior is for achieving Total Victory. Geoff achieved Total Victory and so in my mind he is an American Ninja Warrior.
I agree.
I also can’t see how a contract against splitting the prize could ever be enforceable, or what the point of it would be…
TV Guide totally ruined things by listing “a winner is crowned” as their episode description.
Geoff totally got screwed. I think if you achieve Total Victory you call yourself a Ninja Warrier and I think that anybody that finishes should get some money (say 50K for each finisher and the million for winning the season). As it is, he gets nothing.