I don’t like the every run a race change. One of the best things about city finals was seeing the contestants try to figure out how to proceed. Maybe because there are so many ninja gyms around, there aren’t too many new obstacles. Someone like Jessie Graf was always fun to watch in the cities because you could actually see her try to figure out how to navigate obstacles. And I remember when Kevin Bull went inverted on cannonball run. Now it’s just a matter of who has the most arm and grip strength and can go fastest. Maybe it’s just me but I liked when there was a little more strategy involved and the obstacles were more than just jumping from handhold to handhold. You could get far by taking your time and being strategic rather than just being super fast.
I turned it off last night after it was pre-empted about 30 minutes in (right after Sandy Zimmerman) for a press conference concerning the Trump indictment in Georgia. Did I miss anything important?
I had the same interruption, so I missed much of the middle of the first episode. (Anyone know if Barclay Stockett made it through?)
To quickly summarize:
-RJ Roman beats Elijah “the boss” Browning for one safety pass
-Vance Walker beats the Fly Boy by .2 seconds for the other safety pass
-Jessie Graff falls and is out… might be the end for one of the GOATs
-Ryan Stratis falls and is out
-Daniel Gil goes for blazing speed and falls, giving the amputee guy a chance… but the amputee guy falls after a solid effort and Gil is through
-Flip Rodriguez hits a buzzer and is through
Took me a while to digest the whole double episode, and wasn’t until today’s State holiday that I was able to get thoughts to screen.
One big, big change I’ve noticed is how contestants relentlessly cheer on their opponents. Used to be you’d see someone in the water just look stunned or disappointed. Not now; the you got this-es and c’mons are rampant now. In fact, I’m fairly certain one of the main motivations for tossing match competition in the middle of the season was so NBC could showcase this. (It’s probably not compulsory, but as with all other things they don’t get on the air unless they play along.) I find this…weird. I mean, I get that you don’t want this to devolve into a hatefest like The Challenge or Hell’s Kitchen, but there is a happy medium! Of course, this is only going to result in an even great disconnect with actual sports, where respect is earned and you’re not supposed to root for the enemy.
Of course, this means that NBC now needs to discard even more history on account of not having all this feelgooditude, which is just absolutely irksome. David was out there pontificating about how much of a difference the course feels when you’re directly competing against someone, and neither he nor the show bothered to mention the three incarnations of Team Ronin he was on. Like, come on! 
On to the more noteworthy matches:
Madelyn Madaras vs. Anna McArthur - The one match of the entire evening where the one who made it to Slingshot first (McArthur) lost, further reiterating the point I’m honestly getting tired of making. They should ditch it entirely and put Spider Walls and a fast upper-bodier…something like Cliffhanger or Doorknob Grasper…after Home Run. It’s just sad how predictable semis has gotten.
Grant Kinningham vs. Isaiah Wakeham - Kinningham won by getting to the buzzer first. Of course, as Wakeham hit the buzzer, a rarity in semis, this guaranteed that both would make it, meaning that this match had absolutely zero drama. Another great triumph of the new format, producers! 
Joseph Rouse vs. Nick Hansen - Hansen was ahead through each of the first three obstacles, but then…stop me if you’ve heard this before…ran out of gas on Sideways, allowing Rouse to easily complete it first, meaning that he freaking won it, end of story. Hansen still hasn’t built the stamina this sport absolutely requires; I’d say his contender hopes are over.
Barclay Stockett vs. Rachel Brown - Bars is still a lesbian? Okay, cool. It looks like she’s never getting a buzzer, although this is mainly a consequence of prelims courses just getting harder and harder and harder, keeping the carrot forever out of reach. 
Daniel Gil vs. Gary Weiland - 
Geez. This is one of those matches that would’ve been a lot better if it didn’t happen. Of course Weiland (an AMPUTEE, I remind you) didn’t have a slushball’s chance, so the only redeeming value would’ve been Gil giving the crowd a show and running away with it…and even THAT didn’t happen as Gil made a huge blunder on Sideways and sent straight down. Forcing our inspirational stories to get hammered in these pointless doomed races was such a great idea, wasn’t it? 
Vance Walker vs. Isaiah Thomas (Safety Pass) - The only close one of the entire semis, and fittingly enough, it ended with Walker making an unbelievably clutch pass on the very last lache and winning by a head. This is the ferocious, terrifying, lethal crusher I’ve been wanting to return since his Stage 1 collapse, and I’m glad that he finally did. 
Nacssa Garemore vs. Isaiah Lee - I’ll have a better assessment on Garemore after I finally get around to watching ANWJ3, but yea, this kid is strong! An impressive runaway.
Zhanique Lovett vs. Dara Depaolo - Depaolo turns in the only no-result of the night. Fortunately Lovett made it to Slingshot in a pretty good time, so it wasn’t much of a contest regardless. It’s kinda nice to see ANW finally okay with slaughters, which there have been quite a few of so far.
Brandon Thomas vs. Brett Sims - Much like Wakeham, oldtimer Sims didn’t have much of a chance of winning but was rock-solid enough to reach the buzzer, guaranteeing a pass to naffies. Good for him right? Well, not quite…y’see, he made a bet that if both hit the buzzer, the loser would have to dive into the water from the top of the platform, and guess how this ended. 
GODDAMMIT, SIMS! FIRST TWO BEARD BETS, NOW THIS??? STOP WITH THE GAMBLING!! JUST STOP!!! STOOOOOOOPPPPP!!! YOU’RE GOING TO END UP HOMELESS AT THIS RATE!!!
Ashley Bergstrom vs. Caitlin Bergstrom-Wright - The Bergstroms are the kind of family I’d like to get to know more of (impossible in this “concise” season). One thing that’s without question is that Ashley (wife of Caleb) is by far the better athlete, but it didn’t make much difference as she kept allowing Caitlin to catch up because they’re all a big happy family. A fatal bungle…or rather it would have been if Ashley hadn’t completed Sideways first, turning everything before and after that point into a meaningless spectacle. Boy, this is so much better than the old system when times actually freaking mattered, huh?
Jaleesa Himka vs. Jessie Graff. One L, one S. One L, one S. Got it. Graff led the first three, well, just like Nick Hanson. I wouldn’t exactly call this a passing of the crown moment as Graff’s been on the downslope for a while, but it was a fine run from someone who I never saw as a top contender. I’m reassured that there will be female stars after Graff, which was all I needed.
RJ Roman vs. Elijah Browning (Safety Pass) - Not much to say. Roman absolutely rolled. I’ve never seen anyone look so at ease on Slingshot; he was a reverse rabbit with how he bounded through. Browning had maybe the 3rd or 4th best run of all semis and never had a prayer. The truly scary thing about Roman is that he has no weaknesses; no matter what kind of course he’s on, he crushes it. I’m not so brash as to make a prediction, but don’t be surprised if he has a pretty easy path to Stage 4 once again.
Random note: 
Mano a mano means HAND! TO! HAND! It has nothing to do with the number of participants! Rrgggh! I’m tired of saying this! You can look it up on Babelfish, ferchrissake!
I missed this one due to Trump coverage… who won?
Simple win for Bars; she finished Beehive first, so as soon as Brown went down on Sideways, that was it. Didn’t get very far on Slingshot.
There’s an outside chance that the announcers may be building to something with this “never hit a buzzer” business. If she actually completes Stage 1, I think she could retire right there.
If stage 2 is like semis, you don’t have to complete. A stage 1 buzzer would then effectively be a 50/50 shot at making stage 3.
The problem with Spider Walls is, can NBC air it properly from the side? Remember, it’s side-by-side racing, so the usual “view it from an angle” view won’t work.
You nailed this bit.
[I’ll try to go over next episode a little sooner. Just too drained this week.]
Dang…I talked about homogeneity earlier, and now that NBC is breaking the mold again with this smoosh-every-idea-into-one-show format, I’m starting to see problems creep up. The problem is simple: A skillset that works for quallies isn’t going to cut it in the arm torture semis, and then they go to Stage 1 where footwork, balance, and speed matter again and it’s not enough to get a marginally more inept opponent…gah.
On top of that, making Stage 1 da faddes da fasses is a jarring change. There was a time when missing the buzzer by seconds, or even a fraction of a second, was gut-wrenching. Anyone’s hopes could get crushed at anytime, and Stage 4 or even Stage 3 was never guaranteed…and that’s what was great about this event. That’s what made it unique. Now all the drama and tension is gone; with the guaranteed winner, this is just another show. There’s no insanely high benchmark to clear, he just needs to be a hair better than the #2 guy.
And just to be clear I’m not against a less hardcore contest like this…but if you want one, make one. Hell, isn’t that exactly what they did with ANWJ? And if the viewers are tired with season after season going by with no one taking the million and the prize is starting to look like a bum steer (which I thought was a valid concern), well, why not implement a sensible, workable pay structure like the PGA Tour has and keep the million as a big bonus? I don’t like to bang the same drums all the time, but I really don’t know what else to say here!
Hah. 
Thoughts on invididual contestants:
Emily Gardner - In past seasons I’d have gotten pretty cheesed off about this kind of time-wasting showboating, but nowadays I just don’t care anymore. If you’re a woman and you used a quota system to get here and know you don’t have a prayer, why the hell not ham it up. You go, not-yet-a-woman! 
Jody Avila - Harping on “Out on Stage 1 THREE TIMES IN A ROW!!!” kinda loses something when the buzzer isn’t even necessary anymore.
Jackpot - I’ve speculated back and forth as to what path his atheletic career is going to take once he enters college (because NIL can be highly lucrative and he definitely has the physical chops for a real sport). Well, looks like I got my answer: He took extra classes to graudate from high school a year early so he could commit to ANW full time. 
Yikes. I figured he’d take last season’s total goose egg pretty hard, but I never expected this kind of all-in push. There’s a pretty good chance he’ll never go to college at all (given all the Gen-Xers who got into crippling debt and never got the high-paying jobs they were promised, that would hardly be a surprise). Whatever happenes, he’s going to be a fixture here for quite some time. Oh, and he clobbered the course, like you even needed to ask. 
Sandy Zimmerman - Nobody’s perfect. 
David - Something was off about him. He looked unsure of himself and took way too many swings on Thread The Needle. He has an outside chance of making Stage 3 due to the much more merciful format (seriously, the hardcore Sasuke fans are screaming right now), but I don’t see him even remotely contending for the million.
Bars - Always fun to watch no matter what. I continue to be impressed that someone as short as her can get as far as she does. She went as far as she possibly could…The Gambler was just punishing…and was entertaining all throughout. Couldn’t really expect more.
Jaleesa Himka - All right, now that I got her name down, my next burning question…WHICH frigging American Gladiator was her mom?? You can’t even give a name? How out of control is copyright law nowadays?
The Bergstroms - The nice thing about an extended family unit like this is that they can knock out a bunch of “first ___ duo ever” milestones so Eyes and Bodge can never rant about them again.
Joe Moravsky - Aging very gracefully. Bet against the Buzzer King at your peril.
never mind
Hey, I didn’t really notice it until I realized that there were a bunch of nicknames I hadn’t used in a while…Jax, Chaff, Beebs, Dimbulb, Tryhard, Fish, Lemming, Obody, and so on. Is it just me or has there been a lot of turnover lately? I’m not just talking oldtimers being squeezed out by the young blood, I mean a lot of dependable second-tier grinders and dark horses just…disappearing. Like that. Given how little time nearly everyone has now, I may not even have the opportunity to make any more dumb replacement nicknames, much less hear the original irritating nicknames long enough to feel any need to do so.
Ooh isn’t going anywhere, though, just so you know.
Taylor Johnson - Umm…given that she knows how short she is (4’ 11"!), and given that she knows Jumping Spider is going to be there, and she knows how wide the gap is and how far she’ll have to get her feet across to have a shot, and given that all the ninja gyms have these stock obstacles to practice on, , why would anyone go hyper-ballistic over “VAN DAMME SPLITS!! VAN DAMME SPLITS!!” She freaking knows! She’s practiced splits! She knows how to do it! Sheesh!
Dag - Like Moravsky, circling the drain but very slowly, and he has a ton of heart so don’t write himi off just yet.
Church - Ouch. Again. I still remember the juggernaut who absolutely torched Super Salmon Ladder and came within a nose of claiming a lance; to see him fall as far as he has is heartbreaking. He still has a ton of support, so he’s not throwing in the towel just yet, but a couple more Stage 1 flubs and he’ll have to start asking the hard questions.
Addy Herman - With all due respect, having the second best women’s result is not “devastating”. 20th, given your history, I could see it, but not 2nd.
Albatross - Story of his life; overachieves his heart out and still comes up well short. I don’t care when he retires, but I really want him to go out on a high note. No one deserves it more.
Nacssa Garemore - Intriguing never-say-die scrapper. Needs to become stronger to hang with the top echelon, but he’s going to be a naffies fixture for a long time.
Taylor Greene (the top women’s finisher) - Wow. If I ever pony up for ANWJ3, it’ll be for her. She is powerful. Almost casual up the Warped Wall.
Hundred: I’ll just put it in his words: “I really don’t like speed, so hopefully the person I’m racing is slow.” Yeah, still some lingering bitterness over Blake Feero.
RJ Roman: I’m not sure what went wrong the first time; it looked like he just didn’t warm up properly for some reason. I expected him to make his second chance count, and he delivered. I dunno, guys…deep down inside I know I’m supposed to be absolutely outraged at the Safety Pass, and I just don’t care. He won it, he gets to use it. One thing NBC could’ve done was make Roman the bottom seed for not making it the “correct” way, kind of like NASCAR and provisionals, but then I realized that would’ve resulted in a top star getting bounced in Stage 2, which they absolutely do not want. (Given that the #1 seed is Hundred…yeah, that too.) At any rate, this man’s a force and I’m looking forward to seeing put the fear into a lot of contenders.
No kidding.
How many people who we’d heard of 5 seasons ago have made stage 2? Three? Flip, Gil, Joe?
Then there are maybe four more from 3-to-5 years ago (Austin Gray? Anyone else?). Everyone else is new, mostly teens, it seems.
On the other hand, that’s basically because the teens are better. So, they deserve it.
The only one I can think of is RJ Roman.
Did James “the beast” McGrath make it through?
No, he got hung up for too long in the roulette wheel in Casino.
The, uh, preview of Stage Three… Did they say anything at all about the order the players were running in? Like, faster times later or someting? I think Gill was shown very late in the Stage Two races, but way early on Stage Three. If these races are actually show to us in something close to the order they are running, it seems unfair that some runners get shorter times to rest/recuperate than others do.
Also, I can’t claim to have been paying complete attention (some stuff was going on here), but I think we saw four people run. Of them, two got buzzers, the other two both made it to the last events before falling. Does this suggest that maybe Stage Three isn’t actually the killer challenge they keep hyping? Or is it just that basically all the weaker ninjas have been weeded out?
BTW, personally I find grip strength obstacle after grip strength obstacle gets boring fast.
I think it’s more the latter than anything else. I think if we went back to some of the stage 3s of the Brent Steffenson/Brian Arnold era, 30 ninjas would clear them each year. I mean, the cliffhanger, which has been the only real constant, is clearly objectively way harder now than it used to be, and for the first several years of the show no one had ever beaten it.
Not totally sure how I feel about the race format. But one thing is clear, which is that if the four best non-finishers get to advance to a race-off, the moment you’re significantly behind, your best strategy is to just slow way down, and either hope that the person ahead falls, or just try to finish S2 and get to the race-off. Which sort of cheapens the whole thing.
Sad to see Joe fall. Is he finally definitely, officially, past his prime?
Interesting to see Kaden fall. The inevitability of human perfection had to catch up with him sooner or later, but will he come back stronger and pissed off with something to prove? Or will he be like the proverbial boxing kangaroo who never recovers from getting punched once?
I was thinking about that as well, but ultimately came to the conclusion that it doesn’t gain you anything. If the top four non-finishers got to advance to stage 3, then yes. But the top four non finishers had to race each other to qualify for stage 3, meaning there’s nothing to be gained. You still have to go all out to win a race to advance, so you may as well just do it the first time.
The strategy you describe about just slowing down and being sure you finish is still the smart play, though, at least once you’ve fallen behind. At that point your only chance is that the leader will fall at some point, letting you get further for the win. That’s true even without a consolation runoff.
I took the liberty of writing down the results of all the matches, which maybe should clear things up just a bit. Obstacles fallen on where relevant:
Stage 2
Austin Gray def. Josiah Pippel (walkaway 5) - Pippel made a weird mistake on Epic Air Surfer, landing on the pad with the edge; he bounced back and down. Gray made a fantastic save on the dismount which I’m certain Eyes and Bodge had to be fuming over only having the time to fawn over once.
RJ Roman def. Ben Behrends (walkaway 5) - Pretty easy win for the resurgent metal-horner.
Hans Hertz def. Flip Rodriguez (walkaway 2) - David’s had more than his share of too-early exits in naffies; this was just another.
Enzo DeFerrari Wilson vs. Luke Dillon (speed 5) - Close but no cigar on the tricky dismount for both. Wilson was clearly faster to that point, so a deserved win.
Ethan Bartnicki def. Vance Walker (speed 6) - It looked like the pressure just got to Bartnicki; trying to one time all the Xes was a bad idea. It mattered little, though, as Jackpot had a stunning fall and suffered the first head-to-head defeat of any kind in his ANW career.
Noah Meuner def. Alex Romer (walkaway 5) - Romer had a very pretty single-swing clear on Swing Surfer (the only one who accomplished that all night) but just lost it at the very end of Epic Air Surfer. Tough loss.
Nacssa Garemore def. Jackson Twait (runaway) - Not even close. Garemore was unstoppable tongith.
Caleb Bergstron def. Kyle Soderman (runaway) - Easy win.
Jera Boyd def. Joe Moravsky (walkaway 3) - Slow burn continues for The Weatherman.
Jonathan Bange def. Evan Andrews (distance 6-2) - Andrews messed up the transition to Jaw Breakers and was a non-factor tonight.
Daniel Gil def. Isaiah Thomas (distance 6-2) - Practically a mirror of the last.
Elijah Browning def. Kaden Lebsack (walkaway 5) - So he’s mortal after all. I won’t speculate as to how he’ll spring back from this, but don’t expect him to stay down for long.
Kyle Soderman def. Josiah Pippel (distance 6-5) - A rough night for the young hopeful.
Vance Walker def. Alex Romer (walkaway 4) - Dang, it’s hard enough to take out Jackpot when you don’t give him a second chance. Romer tried the same move at Swing Surfer and found the bottom of the pool.
Stage 3
Enzo DeFerrari Wilson out on #8, Nacssa Garemore finish, Austin Gray out on #8 (
), Daniel Gil finish.
I’m pretty sure NBC’s going to scrap the races, if not next season then the one after. We’re not even getting both competitors hitting the buzzer (which is the absolute bare minimum), much less the nail-biting photo finishes they need to even justify the idea in the first place. There have been upsets, but they’ve mostly been caused by the favorite screwing up, and no one wants that.
And man, we’re 4 of 14 in and no one’s gone out earlier than the very last obstacle? I’ll be brutally honest…I hate this. The wonderful thing about naffies used to be that you never knew who was going to make it, that it could all end in a moment and there was a chance we wouldn’t even see anyone on the later obstacles. Now everyone trains hard, everyone has some idea what to expect, everyone is fit and loaded and ripped and BMI-idealized…it’s made Stage 3, and by extension all of naffies, too predictable. If NBC isn’t going to go back to NVN, they should really give some consideration to a “minor league” show, where we could see non-super hardcore contestants of widely varying body types and abilities compete on a non-arm-wrecking course, and give us lots of fun, excitement, and surprises. Like we used to have all the time.
I hope not. Last night’s episode was my favorite American Ninja Warrior episode EVER in seven seasons of watching. Racing on stage 2 is so freaking exciting, because we’ve weeded out all the weaker competitors and finally having some good, close, exciting races. From what I remember, I think less than half of the top seeds even won their initial race! And, I don’t know, maybe other people don’t like the concept of advancing to stage 3 without hitting a buzzer, but it doesn’t bother me.
As for the comments some people made about all the competitors last night making it to the final obstacle of stage 3, I think the reason for that is because they didn’t put any new obstacles in until the very end. Any time they throw in an obstacle from a previous season, ninjas have had time to practice and perfect that exact obstacle or a close replica of the movement. The other thing is that, with 14 competitors on stage 3, a lot of them will have had a chance to watch other competitors and learn from their mistakes. I can tell you from competing in ninja competitions myself that the completion rate of courses goes wayyy up later on in the night for that reason.