Note: The SDMB, of course, does not have a throwing-up smiley. Tragic, I know. As it turns out, there are times where that would’ve been quite useful in this thread, and this week’s siffies, in particular, was particularly…fertile ground, to put it as discreetly as I can. Therefore, I will be using <BARF> to indicate the presence of the smiley in question, and you can use your imagination. Which these competitors leave very little to, I understand, so just do the best you can. All righty…
0:01 How you can tell ANW has truly arrived: They’ve just spent who knows how much cash to bring in a real live Clydesdale and rider to make some kind of cryptic point about how yeeeehawww-ish Oklahoma City is. Hope they take plenty of precautions the next time they’re in Indianapolis. Those open wheels can really do some damage to unprotected toes.
A quick look at #9, the brand new Snap Back, which requires the contestant to grab a quickly-moving bar in midair, then do it again. Furthermore, he must transition from a front to a reverse grip. This one would’ve easily been a late Stage 3 obstacle in past seasons; it looks like it has the potential to be an absolute killer.
0:03 Profile of Jeff Harris, the “Waste Warrior”, whom Eyes immediately compares to the Village People. Huh…geez…look, how do I put this…making lots of callbacks to 70’s culture made sense when the 70’s weren’t that long ago. You could ask any grade school kid during the Reagan Administration who the Village People or the Bee Gees or John Travolta or Donna Summer are and there’s a pretty good chance they’d know. Now it’s 2019, and the people who were big fans of that stuff are now in their 70’s, and WE’RE GETTING REFERENCES TO THEM ON AN ALLEGEDLY EMMY-NOMINATED PRIMETIME REALITY TV SHOW. I’m really going to be putting up with Boomer crap my entire goddam life, won’t I? This planet is doomed.
Oh, and his thing is that he’s really, really super-duper double-dog serious about recycling. :rolleyes: Because listening to a preachy environmentalist is just what reality TV fans tune into ANW for! :smack::smack:
The run, what-goddam-ever, he made it. Oh yeah, stupid-looking fake mustaches, always a treat. :rolleyes: Moving on…
0:10 Of the five women here tonight, four of them made the top 30, tying the best result ever. This is big. Really big. And as soon as figure out why, I’ll be glad to share it with all of you. First up is Maggi Thorne, who wears a pink bow and pink lipstick, and unlike Natalie Duran has not recently undergone a catastrophic decline. Profile bludgeons home “single mom” with every big as much subtlety as you’d…
…what the…she has a goddam leitmotif??? Someone thought juggling family, career, and participation in a sport that has about a millionth of the value of either of the first two items was worth making a sappy theme song?? I’m sorry, did the Hallmark Channel buy the rights to this show while I wasn’t looking?? Well, you know what’s coming… <BARF>. Truly, madly, deeply, never has a <BARF> been more justified. Anyway, run begins, blah blah set the bar high blah blah inspirational blah, and of course the important lesson is that if you’re injured, keep going! Under no circumstances is pulling out due to injury ever acceptable! Why do you think we can’t have another Ninja vs. Ninja? Gaaaah… :mad: Aaaand, fade out to more beautiful strains of that leitmotif. (A leitmotif!!! She has a freaking LEITMOTIF!!! <BARF><BARF><BARF><BARF>) This is going to be one of those siffies, isn’t it?
0:23 A checklist of all six rounds of ANW (and “Salmon Ladder” for whatever reason). On his shirt. Heh. Why don’t you ask Jeff Gordon how well that sort of chest-thumping worked out for him. Poor fool. (Yeah, kinda hard to write on soaking wet fabric, isn’t it? :rolleyes:)
Tonight’s #8 is Crazy Clocks, always a notorious stumbling block, and it’s already taken out several pretty good competitors. There’s nothing fancy about it; you just need really strong arms, especially since it comes right after Salmon Ladder with no rest. Between this and Snap Back, it’s going to be a battle to find anyone worthy of Power Tower.
0:24 All right, let’s see what’s the deal with Rick Hinnant…whoa, was not expecting that! I’ve mentioned before that siffies was where NBC had to get creative with their profiles, having neither the large pool of Acceptable Stories candidates of quallies nor the star power and playoff excitement of Vegas, but this is definitely a new one…a cross-promotion. He was on Shark Tank and was able to impress one of them enough to lock down a deal, which eventually propelled him to tremendous success. I know that Shark Tank is owned by sister network CNBC, but dang, of all the guest stars we’ve had here, Barbara Corcoran definitely qualifies as one of the most unlikely! So! What-are-you-going-to-do? 
Only one way to…
…oh, you gotta be kidding me. Segue into Acceptable Story. :smack: (Also <BARF>.) His wife had a miscarriage. (What the hell is a “routine” pregnancy, anyway? Maybe you should ask her how freaking routine carrying an increasingly difficult burden and experiencing a laundry list of health problems is. :mad:) And they even had a name, too. Apparently this was so shattering for him that he completely lost his will to have children forever, which is why he turned to entrepreneurship to build his legacy. Well, it’s not the path anyone would have chosen, but if running a successful business gives him a purpose and direction in life, I’m all for it. And if it allows him to set an example for young people, that they don’t need children to be worthwhile to society, so much…
:eek: What the hell do you mean, you have three healthy kids?? What in…how…why…but he just… 
I… …I don’t a clue what to think anymore. I’m just plain confused. Dammit, when I said I wanted more variety in the stories, I didn’t mean all at once!
Out on Coconut Climb, won’t be advancing, and no doubt the Stage 1 profile writer just breathed a huge sigh of relief.
0:33 Ben Wales becomes the first victim of Snap Back. Almost had it but just couldn’t manage the second reverse grab. With stronger competitors stepping up, more could be following soon.
And as I write those words, here comes Karsten Williams. He’s had a rather checkered career, and at 38, he knows the clock is ticking…does he have one more inspired performance in him? As with the true contenders, no sappy profile, no big intro, he just gets right into it. Okay…okay…okay…on to Salmon Ladder, good. Now the unforgiving Crazy Clocks…and…not a problem! He still looks in great shape…
Oh, of all the…what the bloody hell even IS this??? The run cuts away to a long…long…long…looooooong montage of the times he failed on the 9th obstacle. (Which of course has rarely, if ever, been any kind of deal since prior to the cutdown a grand total of ONE siffies contestant has failed to advance after clearing 8, but you already knew that.) First a leitmotif, now this? Is this a reality show or a documentary?? And to cap it off, Eyes calls it…wait for it…Da Kurrrsssss. That’s right, he just compared Williams having a little bad luck on obstacles that ultimately meant nothing to THE MOST FREAKISH, INSANE, BIZARRE, BAFFLING CHAMPIONSHIP DROUGHT IN THE HISTORY OF SPORTS. :smack: I…
And Williams finishes, which means that Eyes can finally shut up about it. Don’t worry, though, he’ll have something equally ridiculous next week. That man’s a professional! :rolleyes:
0:45 On to the second of our lady qualifies, Taylor Amann, who…I’m sorry, there’s no way to mince words about this. She is breathtakingly beautiful. She really is. And, you’ll remember, one of the stars of the Wisconsin juggernaut that utterly steamrolled Team Ninja Warrior College Madness, including a surprisingly powerful MIT squad, thereby ensuring that we’d never have another College Madness.
Boyfriend Clay Raterman is here as well. He’s been largely a non-factor in ANW so far (including College Madness), but he does serve to illustrate the weird balancing act NBC is doing with love interests of the strong women. See, it’s pretty obvious at this point that the loathe the patriarchal mentality as much as anyone else with half a functioning brain, but for some reason they just cannot completely cut ties with these Neanderthals…y’know, the losers who got genuinely outraged when Tifa Lockhart started wearing a sports bra. (Which Amann has on tonight as well, and damn, she is SMOKING.) That turns each run into a weird hedging match where they tease at making it all about the guy but never follow through on it.
Anyway, she went out on Coconut Climb the first time but learned from her mistakes, and the wall is no challenge after that. Not quite powerful enough for Crazy Clocks, but still easily good enough for the top women’s spot. She’ll definitely be one to watch in Vegas. For multiple reasons. 
0:54 God damn…one of the saddest things in sport is seeing the inexorable decline of a former superstar who hangs on for too long. I remember a time when Brent Steffensen dominated this event…being the first man to clear any iteration of Ultimate Cliffhanger will do that. Now here he is, shuffled off to a 3WA land in quallies, and now tonight, the erstwhile king reduced to an afterthought. He did get as far as Crazy Clocks, but in much too slow a time, and he will not be competing in Vegas. I need to move on before I get depressed.
0:55 David Wright! The Cake Ninja! Which means that instead of 200 shots of fans waving idiotic signs, jumping, flailing, and screaming directly into the camera, we’ll have 200 shots of fans stuffing their faces with junk food! <BARF><BARF><BARF><BARF><BARF> Which of course, Eyes and Bodge… <BARF> On second thought, screw their opinion of this. Oh, lovely, the fans have figured out how to use their brain-dead three syllable chants to make demands! <BARF><BARF><BARF><BARF><BARF><BARF><BARF><BARF> Look, I like cake too, I just don’t think glorifying this type of… <BARF><BARF><BARF><BARF> I mean, you could show something positive, like donating cake to homeless shelters, or doing a bake sale to benefit a school! Not everything has to be greed… <BARF><BARF><BARF> Gah… :smack:
1:06 Karen Wiltin, who looks not much unlike Barbara Corcoran. All things considered, she has a heck of a run, managing to get as far as Warped Wall. Amazingly, this is the worst ladies’ run of the night! Man, just think of what she could’ve accomplished last week. (Put Jessica Clayton in KP where she belongs, that what she could have done. :mad:)
1:18 Joining Jody Avila in progress, a sure sign of someone NBC expects to actually have a prayer in Stage 1 so they don’t want to overexpose him now. (Also Wiltin’s run ate up a lot of time…seriously, she was the archetypical “has infinite time and is going to use every second of it” contestant…so they have to make cuts somewhere.) Powerful all throughout and gets up Spider Trap breaking a sweat. Yeah, he’s legit.
1:27 Madelyn McNeal goes out in the same place she did in quallies, Coconut Climb. The #5’s have eaten a lot of lunches this year, and that really show you just how much this contest has evolved. There was a time when things like Devil Steps was a bonafide ninja killer, and that one only required strength and grip.
On to the last woman of the night, Barclay “Bars” Stockett. She’s fallen off my radar a bit, mainly because the camera cut to her roughly 4,000 times during American Ninja Warrior Junior and it got just a tad irksome, but I do remember her as one of the better female contestants. One of the best, honestly, now that old favorites like Kacy Catanzaro and Meagan Martin have fallen by the wayside. The profile highlights her work with Exile International, a nonprofit which helps boys who have been abducted and forced to engage in armed combat…
[OKAY, TIME OUT. Everyone. Everyone, everywhere who is tempted to do this: If what you are talking about consists entirely of boys…i.e., does not contain even one girl…do not use the word “kids”. Okay? It is not “kids” who went on that mass shooting spree or spread that racist propaganda or sexually assaulted that girl. It’s boys. It’s ALWAYS boys. Don’t say “kids” when it’s something only boys ever, ever do. It’s boys, it’s boys, it’s boys, boys, boys, B-O-Y-S BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS BOOOOOOYYYYYYYSSSSSSSSSS. I’ll just leave this here.]
…get back on their feet. How? By…setting up an ANW course. So they can engage in an activity which is physically draining and completely fruitless, but at least they don’t have to worry about getting shot it. This is the best that America can do for young people who have suffered some of the most unspeakable atrocities. Yeah, pretty sure this planet is completely doomed. 
On to the marginally happier run. If Bars gets up Warped Wall, this will be the first time in history that four women made it that far in siffies, an impressive figure and one we’re unlikely to see surpassed for a long time. She does the usual pause-to-showboat-after-every-damn-obstacle thing…swear to Reimu, this crap is worse here than in the NBA…but does, in fact, get up the wall. Excuse me, bee daah waww. Y’know, I don’t see the point of chanting when she’s done this before and it’s not hard for her at all. Despite taking what seemed like a lot more than 3:35, she gets to Crazy Clocks and cements the second women’s spot of the night.
1:39 Matthew Day had a deep run last year, and with a lot of old favorites fading, he feels the time is ripe to seize the crown. Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen with mental errors on #5. He was doing great until he simply whiffed on the notch going down, and with his upper body horizontal there was no saving it.
1:41 Oh boy. Things just got serious. Daniel “Dag” Gil just stepped up to the plate, and like Drew Dreschel before him, he’s going for the trifecta. I had the feeling that reality would screw with Eyes’ and Bodge’s narratives regarding the Power Tower, but I didn’t expect it to happen in the middle of the first iteration. But then, Dag’s never cared much what anyone thought of him, and that confidence serves him well as he (yep) breezes through completely in control (yep) has no trouble with Crazy Clocks or Snap Back, and (yep) gets the (yep) fastest time of the night (yep-yep yep-yep, yep yeeeeeppp :D) I’m seriously starting to wonder what the damn point of the Speed Pass even is.
1:50 Closing things out is Mathis “Cougar” Owhadi, who is Dag’s student. Given how many storybook Power Tower matchups failed to happen, you can bet Eyes and Bodge are hoping for him to beat out Karsten Williams for the #2 spot with a desperation bordering on pants-wetting. Personally, I’m hoping it happens too, mainly because Gil/Williams promises to be about as competitive as a Crimson Tide nonconference game. It’s really close to the end, so, per usual, I’m going to skip the roughly two hours of suffocating drama and inform you that Cougar made it by less than a second. Yay.
1:56 The battle of the fortnight! The firebrand phenom takes on the invincible matter in an upper-body…
:eek:
What…the…hell…is…happening?
:eek::eek::eek:
COUGAR WINS! COUGAR WINS! COUGAR WIIIINNNSSSS! And it wasn’t even close! Man…I knew Dag had slowed down a bit, maybe picked up a few mental stumbling blocks (the mind is always the first thing to go), but you’d think that he wouldn’t have trouble with this one. Hey, this may not be a real sport, but it can still surprise you like one!
How about that: a night that was mostly terrible ends with a young phenom taking out a legend, and all of a sudden he’s in the front running for the $100,000. I don’t really think he’s quite good enough to beat out the likes of Drew Dreschel, but it’ll certainly be a thrill to see him go for it.
1:58 The usual results, where we learn that men named “Alex Blick”, “Kendall Ortez”, and “Damir Okanovic” will be in Stage 1. Maybe someday we’ll actually see their runs instead of…what we actually see. Maybe they can convince NBC by bribing them with fruits and vegetables, then it’ll truly be a win-win!
I know you’re expecting more highlight reel goodness, but… :smack: Aaaaagh.