American Ninja Warrior

Cafe Society
702

I agree with the last sentence almost completely. (I say almost, because I had one smug girl at the gym tell me that once you get advanced enough your skin doesn’t rip anymore, so it was very satisfying to see some of the most advanced athletes in the entire sport ripping their skin on TV and proving her wrong.) As for the rest of what you said: it’s a sport. Kids hurt their still-growing bodies in any number of sports. Balance obstacles and obstacles that require awkward dismounts do sometimes look needlessly dangerous on the show, and I don’t like to see that. But taking EVERY POSSIBLE MEASURE to prevent injury would reduce it to something less than a sport.

I disagree. I like the “one shot at the Mega Wall and one shot at the regular wall, or three shots at the regular wall” better than the one season where you could take three attempts or none at the mega wall.

100% agree.

Ooh, I had heard about split decision, but not what sorts of obstacles the decision would be between. Yeah, I like this a lot, too.

703

I think this might be something that ends up less interesting than it sounds… like, once someone makes it through one way, everyone else copies them, because how stupid would you look if you were the first one who went the other way and fell. But… I hope I’m wrong. Still, I’m always in favor of change.

704

ANWJR season three is casting, so it will be returning.

705

Oh, good. Whatever misgivings I have about the direction of ANWJ, a reality show putting hard-working, well-mannered, honest young people front and center can’t not be a good thing. I’m predicting a tidal wave of pablum about “coping with a difficult time” and “staying strong through adversity”. Eh, if it means they get to do away with BS like “runner-up”, it’s a reasonable trade.

706
707

Looking forward to it! Granted, the odds of anyone whose name does not begin with the letters J e s s winning seem close to zero, but… you never know.

(Sadly no Barclay. Hopefully she’ll be back for the new season.)

708

This was filmed after season twelve, which is why she isn’t there. She has confirmed on her Instagram that she’s returning for season thirteen.

709

They’re really trying to push the ladies, aren’t they?

Rest assured that I’ll be there with my play-by-play, though I make no promises of entertainment. My expectation (and fear) is that this is going to turn out like a typical women’s Grand Slam event, where the #1 seed completely steamrolls twelve straight sets without breaking a sweat and someone in the other half doesn’t give up her first break until the semis, meaning zero excitement before the final. Seriously, does anyone here not expect Clubhouse to run away with it? Let’s take a quick look at the field:

Graff: She’s old. I’m sorry, there’s no denying it anymore. I know she’s an icon, but age spares no one. Also, she can suffer a fatal mental hiccup at any time (USA vs. The World 3 being the prime example), which is doom in any contest with multiple rounds.
Martin: Dominant at her peak, but that was a long time ago. Never had the speed for full-burner head-to-head racing. Highly noticeable loss of confidence in recent seasons.
Warnky Buurma (yeah, I’m thinking I’ll have to give her a nickname): From almost the beginning I got a “worst of the best” vibe from her, and in recent years she’s definitely been slipping. Not sure she has anything left.
Tweb: Her fans keep waiting for her to make the jump from okay to great, and it never happens. Exposed in NVN and won’t scare anyone.

The rest are a hodgepodge never-weres and might-bes, who may have gotten up the Warped Wall or pulled off a spectacular save on Block Run that one time but aren’t ever going to accomplish anything meaningful. Unless this Ashley McConville turns out to be a blazing phenom, which I kinda doubt.

Don’t mean to be a downer (No, really! :grin:), just think it’s a good idea not to get your expectations too high. At any rate, it’s something to occupy us other than American Idol, so there’s a plus.

710

Graff is old and has made mental mistakes. But Flex also makes mental mistakes and seems to have roadblocks she can’t get past. If I had to put money I’d say Flex > Graff, with only the most remote outside shot of anyone other than those two. But between the two of them I think it could honestly go either way. I feel like Graff has better grip strength and technical skill. Flex is younger and probably overall faster and stronger.

But in ANW anyone can fall off a balance obstacle, so…

711

[spoiler]Well, that didn’t turn out like we thought.

I am thrilled with how the women’s championships turned out. I don’t think anyone is expecting Meagan to win, but she deserved that win. She didn’t advance through dumb luck (falling on the right side of tilting wall, tripping through a balance obstacle everyone else fell on, or advancing by the skin of her teeth because someone else had an unexpected early fall), she advanced because of her skills.
She got through the Dungeon specifically because of her training, and she beat Labreck by taking a calculated risk that paid off only because she had trained enough to be able to do all those difficult laches without taking the time to build up swing.

But what makes it even better is that Meagan Martin was sinking into oblivion. Most of the top-tier females had some sort of unique(ish) accomplishment to brag about: a city finals buzzer, a stage 1 buzzer, a USA vs. the World Stage 1 or Stage 2 buzzer, but all Meagan had were some city qualifier buzzers from years ago. I was watching this with my boyfriend, and at the beginning I actually said aloud that I wasn’t expecting her to do well, because her most successful runs were years ago and
I thought she was past her prime. It felt so good to be proven wrong!

Also, now it makes sense why she seemed so cheerful after falling last season. When she fell on the balance obstacle and just shrugged and smiled, I thought it was a little odd that she didn’t seem particularly disappointed. Probably because she won 50k the night before![/spoiler]

712

I think the women’s championship was filmed after the entire regular season. I’m pretty sure that’s how they always did the (similar) USA vs the World, for instance.

Anyhow, yeah, glad to see that it was more competitive than we all worried, and pleasantly surprised at how rock-solid Meagan was. Mady and Tiana both established some serious cred going forward as well. And much as Sandy Zimmerman drives me up the wall, she’s got skills.

713

Rachael Goldstein refers to a special episode filmed the day before semi-finals here. So they clearly filmed something between qualifiers and semi-finals, and the Women’s Championships is the most logical assumption, I think.

714

So…that happened. It seemingly continued the trend of NBC trying to make all ANW events look exactly the same. (I’ve occasionally expressed worry that NvN was going to get thrown into the same homogenization vat, but now the truth looks like NBC hasn’t figured out a way to do it and that’s why it’s on ice.) It didn’t help that Eyes was in Dick Vitale Mode the entire freaking evening, blaring up even the most mundane moves into buzzer-beater status. :scream: Sheesh, it’s as if he was making up for the fans not being able to scream directly into the camera.

Remember that 1992 match between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova (of which this is pretty much the only record that still exists?) How it was supposed to be this amazing battle of the sexes duel between two living legends, and Connors…who had two not-insignificant handicaps and was battling nerves, I might add…won pretty easily? And once this oh-so-epic clash was over, everyone went “Huh, guess biological differences really do make a difference in sports, who knew?” and roughly ten minutes later everyone forgot it ever happened? Same deal here, a big-sounding event with a big marquee and big names that simply did not live up to the hype and will most likely be just another chunk of flotsam in the vast murky ocean of reality TV, much like Strong. Dangit, that one deserved at least a second season.

Okay, you know the drill…

0:00 A whole lot of stating, restating, and re-restating what this event is. You know what it means when they do this? That they don’t have any actual accomplishments to hype up. Extremely bad sign. (And inexcusable, as NBC damn well knew that virtually none of these ladies did anything other than maybe hit a quallies buzzer, which is so dime-a-dozen at this point that trumpeting it seems downright patronizing.)

0:01 It’s hertory, Bodge! HERTORY! :crazy_face:

0:02 Aw, crap. All twelve contestants compete on a quallies course, which, following usual procedure, is the same one from the most recent season), of which six…six…make it to the second round. That takes place on a 10-obstacle course, with the top four making it to the Power Tower. Uggggghhhh… :man_facepalming: Look…guys…I’m hardly impressed by most of these women, but jeez Louise, if you’re going to take the trouble to bring them all the way here for a special event, freaking get some use out of them! It continues to baffle me how one reality show after another takes weeks or even months to assemble its pool of contestants, and the instant the contest begins, it drops a damn cluster bomb on them. Why is the order of the day always eliminate, eliminate, eliminate? Wouldn’t some kind of scoring system work just fine? You know, like USA vs. The World has? Why can’t NBC ever standardize their good ideas?? Goddammit. :slightly_frowning_face:

0:03 We kick things off with the rookie, Ashley McConville. Profile…

OKAY, TIME OUT - Really?? Freaking really?? Why is it that nowadays NBC only ever, ever, ever shows Kacy Catanzaro’s QUALLIES run??? Hey, I remember there being a siffies that year, and I remember Catanzaro completing the siffies course (Yo, check it out!), which was an enormously greater achievement by any metric! What is it with this freakish obsession with the easiest stage of the contest??? What is wrong with you people???

…which shows her completing a quallies course. Joy. :roll_eyes:

All right, since she’s the first runner, that means that she won’t be an embarrassment but ultimately not be a factor. Aaaaaaaand…nailed it, out on Sideways. Thanks for playing, drive home safely, enjoy the veal. Wait…is it enjoy the veal, then drive home safely? Yeah, that sounds better.

0:07 Sandy Zimmerman, the 44-year-old supermom. Profile is exactly the same as I remember it from past appearances. So is the run, for that matter, as it takes forever but somehow finds a buzzer. Consistency! :slightly_smiling_face:

0:14 Hey, did you also know that Michelle Warnky Buurma is 11-1 all time in team events? It’s true! Too bad NBC has to pretend that team events never existed for what I’m assuming are reasons, thereby killing at least 80% of this field’s real accomplishments! (I can’t wait to see what they have for Clubhouse! :rage:) She’s thinking of moving from active competition, which is an excellent idea as her big splash on Beehive proves that she just doesn’t have the muscle for this anymore. Age spares no one. :slightly_frowning_face:

0:17 Tweb Tweb Tweb Tweb Tweb Tweb Tweb Tweb Tweb Tweb Tweb Tweb Tweb Tweb Tweb Tweb! Not so much fun NOW, is it? :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

0:25 Waiweewuwwawei. Because it’s not fair to the big names for the bottom-feeding trash to get the same coverage as them. :woman_facepalming::angry:

0:27 Usual awkward flailing profile for Meagan Martin, and then… :astonished::+1: Man, that looked rock-solid. And this after doing pretty badly on this course not too long ago.

0:36 Waiweewuwwawei #2, because that’s just the world we live in now. Then Alyssa Beird, who suffers a bad break on Sideways. Hopefully this is the only time this incredibly fluky, chancy part of the obstacle will be a factor. :roll_eyes:

0:41 Jessie Graff. Hits the buzzer. Celebrates a bit too much. Doesn’t look all that Wondrous. Take whatever joy you can.

0:49 And a goddam third waiweewuwwawei. What did you even bring them here for? Oh, right, to give us 200 shots of them endlessly cheerleading the other contestants, because Eyes wasn’t making enough irritating noise! :woman_facepalming: Seriously, is no one allowed to just watch quietly anymore? It happens all the time on Sasuke, honest!

0:50 Clubhouse! INCREDIBLE SAVE ON SIDEWAYS! She fell in the same spot as Beird but the pad went the other way! (After which she says that the gods were with her, because what this show really needs is more religious fanaticism! :grimacing:) Hahh…y’know what? I’m never the guy who cries “conspiracy”, but screw it. I’m saying she deliberately tanked that dismount. How could a powerful veteran like her (Did I mention she beat Adam Rayl once? No joke! :slightly_smiling_face:) flub the last transition that badly and survive by landing in just the right spot? You expect me to believe that incredible breaks like that just happen? Okay, fine, they do, but let me believe otherwise just this once because it’s the only entertainment value I’m likely to get from this event. At any rate, as one way or other her buzzer was totally undeserved, I will not be pulling for her to win this. Sorry.

(She’s going to run away with this, isn’t she?)

0:59 Yeesh, just watching Corkscrew is painful. I’m amazed that with the tidal wave of injuries we’ve had in recent seasons, no one’s ever strained or dislocated anything on this.

1:00 Goddesses, making the course an upper-body destroyer is even better for an all-women event! :woman_facepalming::angry:

1:10 I swear, by the time they’re done flogging that mother stuff, she’s going to be a grandmother.

1:14 I’m a bit disappointed that Clubhouse didn’t compete in that bikini. Would’ve made a powerful statement and made me a microscopically bit guilty about not rooting for her.

(She’s going to run away with this, isn’t she?)

1:25 Megan Martin takes a nasty fall on Burn Rubber, but since the coverage started at this point it’s a lead pipe cinch that she’s not out, and, yeeeep. :roll_eyes: And she even goes the distance. I’m starting to think she could be in the final.

1:37 Sweet merciful crap, four on-the-course-right-nows in a row?? Here’s a tip: When you put six contestants on a course modeled after siffies, which normally has the lengthiest runs of the season, and none of them are speed demons but are strong enough that they stand a good chance of making it a long way through the course (all six made it past the 8th obstacle), MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ENOUGH FREAKING AIRTIME TO PROPERLY ACCOMMODATE THEM. :angry: This network, man…

1:47 On to the Let’s Get This Over With. Good contest between Meagan Martin and Mady Howard; Martin’s a little stronger and gets a decisive win.

1:50 Clubhouse [mumble grumble mumble grumble] beats Tweb. Feelings of dread intensify.

1:57 [deep, deep sigh] All right, we all know what’s going to happen, so let’s not delay the agony any longer. Martin just a bit behind. Martin still just a bit behind. Struggles a bit on the poles. Running out of time. Clubhouse is on the last pad, while Martin…

:astonished: MARTIN SURGES AHEAD AND WINS! ALMOST ONE-TIMES THE LAST PAD! IT WASN’T THAT CLOSE! MARTIN WINS! MARTIN WINS! :grin: (:woman_shrugging:)

So yeah, good for her. She was always one of the best but never got a big score. Now she has a 10-obstacle completion (the only one of the night, incidentally) and a trophy. Yes, there was a trophy for this stupid contest. And 50 grand, and I’ll spare you the usual whining about second place being worthless because even I’m tired of that by now. This is her high point, her magnum opus. She can retire right now if she wants. Maybe she should.

Overall mood: :sleeping: Next time just have the top four women and have them compete in a variety of contests. There’d be much more of a point than having eight roster-fillers you’re just going to give the bum’s rush anyway. Hayate’s kneepads, when did ANW become so joyless? The Titan Games is starting to look better and better all the time.

715

Just a little heads up: Season 13 premieres May 31. It’s going to be the first with the new age limit of 15, and of course I’ll be breathlessly watching to see if there’s any reason to give a rip about this. Let me put it this way: if Dancing With The Stars started allowing 15-year-olds, that would be big, because a pro would have to adjust to a much different type of partner than he or she is used to, and a teenager would handle week-to-week performance pressure much differently from the typical DWTS field, many of whom are old or on the downswing of their careers. ANW, with as many contestants as it has, with as many time-hogging fluff pieces as it has, and edited to within an inch of its life as it is, just isn’t going to be affected the same way. NBC will continue to show us exactly what they want us to see, no more, no less. If you were anticipating a boy flipping off the camera or screaming an f-bomb into it, or a girl flashing her breasts, or Daniel Gil getting smothered in silly string, sorry, ain’t gonna happen. Even if it did happen, NBC will not air something which would cause them embarrassment or make ANW look bad.

There’s always the potential that one of these kids is going to do something truly impressive, and we might even see the start of a true youth movement. I never said that couldn’t happen. Just keep an open mind and don’t set the bar too high. These young hopefuls are going to do their best, and for now that’s all anyone should expect from them. We can make our Exciting Phenoms lists after getting some results.

Side note: Please, no injuries. Young or old, big or small, veteran or newcomer. That is the only thing I ask of this season. Nobody should have to sacrifice their body for a damn reality show.

Then there’s ANWJ. (Viewers had trouble accessing Universal Kids, so NBC switched to a premium service. Prime logic right there. :roll_eyes:) I don’t have Peacock and am not planning to get it, so I won’t get to cover this one unless I can get the episodes on Youtube. Regardless, I don’t really have much more to say in any case, so if I do get the episodes at some point in the future, any coverage I have is going to be brief.

716

My expectations are high. If you’ve paid any attention to ninja leagues, the most advanced young adults have been allowed to compete in the adult division, and they typically outperform the adults.

717

Yeah, there was some chatter on the ANW subreddit about the incredible physical skills of some of the teenagers. I think there could be some interesting raw-physical-strength vs mental-toughness action… guess we’ll see.

718

Season premiere yesterday. Lessee…Warped Wall utterly inconsequential. Big logjam at 4-5. Whole course is too hard overall. Eyes constantly wailing over nothing. Bodge spewing nonsense. Timer only shown to push “New fastest time!!” hype. Fastest time meaning absolutely nothing. Finishing meaning absolutely nothing. Insipid profiles. Same narratives we’ve seen a thousand times before. Annoying leitmotifs. Tiresome, unfunny “comedic” bits. Flanderization. No references from after the Flower Power era. Whole production excessively padded…even 3WAs take forever now…making it seem a long shorter than it actually was.

Folks…it’s…it’s happened. I’ve begun the season with the exact same gripes I had in the last one. Which means that this show…it’s finally hit rock bottom! There’s nowhere left to sink anymore, no way to make it worse without radically revamping it or giving up the TV-PG rating.

So yeah…not a whole lot to say. It happened. It’s the ANW you know and mostly tolerate because The Voice isn’t getting any better.

Teenagers did all right, so that’s a positive, I guess.

< STUPID NICKNAME WATCH > - This is something I’ve decided to do this season (in lieu of doing anything else). What can I say, you give someone a nickname, for whatever reason, you grow attached to that person. Because of Split Decision, I’m now going to be noting the obstacle the contestant goes out on.

Kid “Mathis” Owhadi - Spinning Log (Split Decision), out of top 30
Well, it finally happened. The arrested development champ threw in a clunker. Happens to the best of them. At least I don’t have to call him a term for a predatory old woman anymore now that he’s done the first name replacement thing.

Barclay “Bars” Stockett - Overpass, out of top 5 and top 30
Yeesh. Damn. I know NBC needs Acceptable Stories, and “using tragedy as a catalyst for an incredible performance” makes for great headlines, but not everyone can be Buster Douglas! She was very plainly in no condition to perform and should have taken the time to properly work through her grief. Instead she trudges onto the course, fighting back tears literally every second, takes an early plunge, and gets reduced to a footnote. Great job, guys. :angry:

Thomas “Marid” Stillings [3WA] - Spinning Log (Split Decision), out of top 30
(All this “genie” nonsense was wearing out its welcome, but he brought out a freaking magic lamp, that was absolutely the last straw. Still, I don’t find mystical figures aggravating per se, so I figured I’d just go with “Marid”, a water genie in Dungeons and Dragons, which is highly appropraite since that’s where Stillings usually ends up, har har har. :stuck_out_tongue:) Another unfortunate misstep. Looks like he just had a bad night.

Nate “Dimbulb” Burkhalter [3WA] - Overpass, out of top 30
Dunno what made him a big deal, but it was completely absent tonight. Better luck next time, if there is one.

Daniel “Dag” Gil - V Formation, 7th place out of 30
Well, that was…new. Dag, who won this last season and has always been easy money in the 6-obstacle opening round, whatever you called it, takes a dip on #5. It looked all the world like the difficulty spikes finally caught up to him. He’s still one of the best around, but the road to naffies just got a whole lot steeper. Let’s hope he can spring back from this.

719

Stuff I learned from quallies episode 2:

Plugging the new age minimum with a classic horror movie motif is a perfectly logical choice for a show running in June.

Split Decision, a choice between two obstacles that employ the exact same skills, is an absolute gut-wrenching decision because every time someone fails here, it was an absolute 100% lead pipe cinch (s)he would have absolutely aced the other.

Crowing about how an agent made a certain baseball player the highest paid in the sport is a great way to appeal to both fans making a gazillionth as much and the ninjas themselves, the overwhelming majority of whom are still getting jumping jack squat for their athletic feats.

Aaaaand, despite the fact that there’s zero evidence that Joe Moravsky has any kind of rivalry with the kids, what the heck, let’s just assume that he has an explosive incredibly bitter rivalry with the kids. More fun that way.

Profile of the day goes to Julius Ferguson: “Most people, when they see a homeless person, think ‘lazy bum who gave up on life’. However, I am not that. Despite the fact that I never give the slightest detail as to why I’m homeless because of the need to avoid all that icky sociopolitical reality talk, particularly regarding the injustice inherent in American society…Oh, did I mention that I’m black? Not to imply that that means anything…that gives NBC conniptions, you can be assured that I’m not a lazy bum who gave up on life, because undisclosed reasons. Thankfully, a very nice man came along and turned my life around, in an equally nebulous and specifics-free manner. This is a very heartwarming story which proves that American society, and especially you in particular, do not need to make the tiniest effort to make the slightest effort to even address the issue of homelessness, much less fix it.” Great story. I give it a :face_vomiting::roll_eyes::angry::man_facepalming: out of :woman_facepalming::weary::grimacing::rage:

More or less par for the course, except for one little tidbit. See, the problem with screaming into the camera is that some of them, in their completely organic excitement, forget to face the camera, or occasionally forget that there even is a camera. Grant McCartney, in particular, is really good, I mean bad about this. So NBC took the next obvious logical step, which was to mike up everybody. You could hear it from the very first runner, Jon Bundy, and boy oh boy, could you ever hear HIM. Even though he faced every which way, he was loud enough to make the dead file a noise complaint.

Geez…remember how I said one post ago that there was no way to make it worse? Guess what: it got worse. And it’s only going to get even worse once the live crowds come back. I’m not at the end of my rope just yet, but I’m getting there. Just hoping like hell for something, anything, to stem the tide.

< STUPID NICKNAME WATCH >
Olivia “Obody” Colasuonno [3WA] - Broken Bridge, out
Seriously, who the heck is this again? All I have in my files are two one-sided losses to vastly superior boys in ANWJ1. I’m not certain she deserves even a 3WA, much less a nickname. And I don’t think I mentioned this before, but I really, really despise cramming puns into everything and anything. Seriously, “Fur Ever Ninja”? That’s just pukeworthy. So I decided to nip this in the bud with an equally objectionable but, at present, much more accurate pun. Reserve the right to change if if she accomplishes anything, though! As for the run, valiant struggle on Broken Bridge, but there are certain things that you have to get right the first time. She’ll learn. Hopefully.

Tiana “Tdium” Webberley [3WA] - Tipping Point, #5/#30
It’s not often that I describe a certain ninja’s hype as “cloying”, but that fits her to a…well, you know. Seriously, I haven’t seen “Sparkly Ninja” once all year, and not only is “Sweet T” plastered freaking everywhere every second she’s on the screen, NBC has even resorted to trumping up meaningless BS stats. “7-time veteran”?? “Wow, she’s been in this a bunch of times!” That’s an “achievement”??? So if it’s going to be T this and T that, I’m sorry, a dull portmanteau doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s “Tdium” from now on, which encapsulates the incredbily tired feeling I get every time I see here. Once she actually got to work, though, she did pretty good for herself. She was even able to cap off an unprecedented all-top 30 women’s top 5, so they would’ve made it regardless.

Two week break for Olympics qualifying, which is another thing that NBC does.

720

Highlights of this…no, that’s going way too far. “Lights”. That’s enough.

  • Hey, remember all that crap that flew around about “participation trophies” a while back? Well, guess what, ANW managed to one-down that. What’s this season’s fashionable pseudo-achievement? “Veteran.” That’s right, Eyes and Bodge (or more accurately the NBC showrunners pulling their strings) are now counting the times certain contestants did freaking anything whatsoever! :woman_facepalming: No-result quallies? Veteran! Break your ankle? Veteran! Fail miserably on the same type of obstacle for the 8th straight time? Veteran! I’m reminded of the saying “If at first you don’t succeed, that’s one data point”, but at least data points have some use, which is more than anyone can say for this miserable pathetic sucktacular excuse for an achievement. Of course, it’s the women getting this “honor” the majority of the time, which just goes to show you that when there’s nothing left to celebrate, it’s time to celebrate nothing. :roll_eyes: Geeeeeeeeezz.

  • Brett Sims. I promised that I’d never talk about him again until he did something different. Well, now he has a bunch of tiger stripes on his right arm, each indicating a season he’s been on this show. Yeeeeahhh. All right, you did it, Sims, nice job. I’m now raising the bar to “something even marginally interesting”. :roll_eyes:

  • Add “frog kissing” to the ever-expanding list of unbelievably sickening things I regret ever seeing on this show. (“Skin ripping” is still #1, though.)

  • You know, the Battle of the Sexes was a long time ago, and since then we’ve had female chessmasters, girls playing on boys’ teams because there was no girls’ team, Connors vs. Navratilova, Annika Sorenstam taking a couple cracks at the PGA tour, Danica Patrick actually winning a CART race, etc…at this point, shouldn’t someone have come up with at least one song about this particular subject other than THE MOST GODDAM IRRITATING NOVELTY SONG IN THE HISTORY OF FREAKING SONGS that’s been the zero-effort go-to ear bleeder for roughly the past 150 years? :rage:

  • Isn’t it weird that you never hear anyone use the word “mailwoman”? Any politics, any situation, any context? I think it’s weird.

  • You know what, if the choice is between causing freaking property damage every time you get up the wall and extremely smarmily not causing freaking property damage every time you get up the wall, well, Scylla and Charybdis.

  • Protip: If your day job involves being around or in the water a lot, don’t build your freaking ANW persona around it. The water is your enemy! You can’t be a mermaid here! You just can’t!

  • So Gbajabia-moments is now “three boring waiweewuwwaweis we found noteworthy for some inexplicable reason”? One of the few moments of the show I found at least passably entertaining, and it’s degenerated into this slop practically overnight. Damn you, Covid! (Watch, they’re totally going to blame it on Covid, you heard it here first. :slightly_frowning_face:)

< STUPID NICKNAME WATCH >

Kevin “Wingman” Carbone [3WA] - #5 (normal wall)
Now that Brian Arnold is on the downswing, he’s now our “solid as a rock” candidate. Bonus points for going after Mega Wall even though he never had much of a shot at it, because there is still zero downside to failing it and if the “God of ANW” can’t get this, no one can.

Devin “Dev” Harrelson [3WA] - #15
Yeah, I’ve decided that he doesn’t deserve a nonsequituriffic three syllables, so he’s just “Dev” from now on. Good enough for quallies; hope he beats the odds and gets actual airtime in siffies.

Grant “Tryhard” McCartney - out
What’s the only thing worse than one underachieving brat constantly crying for attention? Two pitiful underachieving brats constantly crying for attention. :grimacing: Luckily it seems like humility is finally catching up to both him and Nick Hanson, so we don’t have to worry about him doing human cannonball or whatever.

Vance “Jackpot” Walker - #10 (Mega Wall)
An TV show starring Chuck Norris. :astonished: Chuck. Norris. :face_vomiting: No. No no no no no no no no no no no no NO. :angry: NEVER. EVER.* :face_with_symbols_over_mouth: EEEEVVVVEEEERRRR. :scream: That said, chew on this: At the age of 15, he has competed in three ANW events and won money in every one of them. Can you imagine something like this happening even five years ago? This used to be the show where everyone went home empty-handed. Brent Steffensen never won a cent. Neither did Brian Arnold. Or Kevin Bull, Travis Rosen, Noah Kaufman, Jamie Rahn, or Sean Bryan. Geoff Britten never won anything, dammit. :rage: (Yeah, still angry about that.) And this kid comes out of nowhere and gets paydays left and right. Don’t be surprised if he adds a lance to his gold collection his season, too. This isn’t hitting a home run at the first at bat, this is hitting a home run in the first twenty at bats and turning three game-clinching triple plays on top of that. This is new territory for me, so I’m not sure which emoticon I’m supposed to use. I’ll try to have something worked out by naffies.

721

Lights! Camera! Screaming into!

  • Addy Herman… Addy Herman… what do I have for her… oh, here it is. “Snuck into playoffs via lose-then-win BS before getting pureed by Kaden Lebsack.” Eh, I’ve seen worse.

  • Orthodox Judaism! Too bad God only deemed you worthy of patronizing psuedo-Olympic crap! :roll_eyes::angry:

  • “Little Miss Tyson???” :astonished: Long, well-documented history of violent altercations? Abused his girlfriend? Bit of a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear? Blew a reported $400 million? Looked sadder than Peter McNeely and Razor Ruddock put together in his last fight? Oh, and let’s not forget the RAPE CONVICTION?? THAT Tyson? :woman_facepalming: Just go with Holyfield. Or Mayweather. Geeezz. :angry:

  • MIT students, eh? Wow, you’re absolutely right, MIT isn’t known for athletics! At all! If only there were one event where MIT students did impressive athletic feats! Maybe even got a podium finish! Even better if it had some kind of connection to ANW! Nope, sorry, can’t think of anything! :roll_eyes::roll_eyes::roll_eyes: (Seriously, why is NBC so utterly hellbent on erasing this show’s history? Do they really want us to remember nothing but sob stories and overexcited family members?

  • Protip! Repeating an irritating nickname 275 times does not make it less irritating! :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

  • I’d like you to take a moment to ponder the unique niche the Amish occupy, a community of archaic weirdos which America, as a whole… does not have a problem with. “We reject the unholy sinful decadence of modern society! Ours is the path of virtue and wisdom! Hard work! Values! Moral rectitude!” “:man_shrugging: ’Kay, whatever. Well, gotta run, got stuff to do.” They ride horses, make their own clothing, don’t use electricity, and shut themselves out of anything fun or exciting, and, overwhelmingly, our national response has been to ignore them. Can you imagine this live-and-let-live mindset with any other minority group whatsoever? There are parts of this country where you can’t sell freaking gay-friendly cakes without sparking foaming-at-the-mouth protests. Truly remarkable.

  • Protip (2-for-1 special)! If you want to prop up Split Decision as this agonizing choice between two incredibly different obstacles where every single contestant who goes down on it will driven to near-suicidal misery over not picking the other, there are two scenarios you need to avoid: 1. Both obstacles have a very high success rate, thereby giving the impression that the decision had no real impact, and, as happened this week 2. Nearly every-freaking-one picking one side, thereby making the overriding sentiment that somebody should be fired. Seriously, you had no idea that nobody would want to pick Block Run? Don’t you keep stats for this sort of thing?

  • Isn’t it funny that you’ve never heard Ethan Swanson give his opinion of having to do that silly-looking arm flapping before every single goddam run from now to eternity? Why is that, I wonder?

  • David Campbell. Still got it. :slightly_smiling_face: I’d say that he’s one of the truly impressive veterans if that word hadn’t been so horribly degraded this season. I’ll stick with “ageless wonder”.

Ending the stupid nickname watch because I’m tired. :weary: