After covering John Hennigan‘s Survivor journey and Eva Marie‘s time in the Celebrity Big Brother house, LWOPW is back with our latest wrestling/reality TV crossover to follow current independent wrestler, Lio Rush, as he seeks to win MTV’s The Challenge: Double Agents. In this edition, we’ll cover episodes 1-3. Going forward, make sure to check back weekly as we’ll update you on Rush’s progress on the show.
Welcome to The Challenge: Double Agents. My name is TJ Lavin and I’m your handler for this season…okay, I’m not TJ Lavin, but I will be your guide through LWOPW’s coverage of MTV’s The Challenge: Double Agents as we follow Lio Rush in his attempt to win the show this year. So let’s start at the beginning. What exactly is The Challenge?
Now in its 36th season, MTV’s The Challenge is a cutthroat reality TV competition that shares elements with Big Brother, Survivor and other games that involve forming alliances, social gameplay, competition prowess, twists, and betrayal. Lots and lots of betrayal. The winner receives a cash prize. Each week, contestants, either playing as singles, pairs (such as the case this season) or large teams, compete in extreme competitions for the the right to be safe during that week’s vote. The vote determines the bottom team, which combined with the choice of the double agents, competes in that week’s elimination challenge. This year, that challenge, which the contestants don’t know what it is until they are chosen to compete, is held in the Crater. On Double Agents, one of the aspects of this year’s theme is that the vote is held in secret. Only the winners of that week’s challenge, known as the double agents, are allowed to know the results. The winner of the elimination stays in the house and the loser goes home. But there is a twist as the winner of the elimination challenge has the option to keep their partner, swap to the losing competitor’s partner or infiltrate any of the other teams in the house with the exception of the double agents. No doubt, this will make for some crazy, exciting gameplay this season.
Originally an offshoot of MTV’s The Real World, which brought us Mike “The Miz” Mizanin, The Challenge primarily features competitors who have been on TRW or one of its sequel shows such as Road Rules, Are You the One?, Ex on the Beach and more. Only in recent years has the show expanded to feature outside contestants, billed as rookies, competing alongside the vets, many of whom have come back year after year in this competition. These rookies or non-MTV show competitors have largely come from other reality shows, primarily Big Brother. But the show has also featured famous athletes and the precedent for a wrestler appearing is not unheard of either. The aforementioned Miz, appeared on five seasons (and hosted a two more) of the show and even won twice (Battle of the Seasons, 2002 and Inferno II, 2005). CM Punk also made an appearance on the show, taking part in the Champs vs Pros special mini-season in 2017, as did Ariane Andrew (formerly WWE‘s Cameron), who was on the 2017 Champs vs Stars 2 mini-season. This year, Lio Rush is representing the grapplers as he becomes the first wrestler since the Miz, to take part in a regular season of the show.
Episode One – Rush and the Rookie Rebellion
https://twitter.com/TheLionelGreen/status/1337143167573843968
On episode one, Lio, alongside his fellow male competitors, competed to earn immunity. The female competitors did the same thing and due to Aneesa having a faster finish time than Fessy, the male winner, she got to pick her partner. Aneesa picked Fessy and then the rest of the competitors were told to trust their instincts and pick their own partners. Lio ended up with Gabby, a fellow rookie, who comes to The Challenge via Love Island UK 3.
As it would turn out, when it came to discussion around the house aka the political part of the game, the rookies found themselves right at the center of the bullseye. While not unsurprising as rookies tend to be picked off early on, this year’s crop of first timers are proving to be a not so easy out. With a portion of the house wanting to take out the former Challenge winners first and the other side looking to take out the rookies early on, CT made an impassioned plea to his fellow contestants. Essentially his message was leave the vets alone and take out the rookies instead because if you swing at the kings, you better not miss. That plan may well have worked if not for Lio and his fellow rookies, who asserted why they planned to vote for CT instead. Observing that it wasn’t about the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog, Lio casually told CT that “I flip people twice your size for a living.” This garnered a chuckle from the house and in later footage, many of the vets expressed how impressed they were that the rookies were pulling a powerplay so early on in the game. When the votes came in, the final tally was close, but in the end it was CT and partner Ashley who were chosen to go to the Crater. And much to everyone’s surprise, the first elimination was simply a women’s elimination meaning the move to get CT out of the house would have to wait another week. Ashley competed against Survivor’s Natalie, who won and chose to stay with her partner, Wes, leaving CT a rogue agent.
Episode Two – Nothing to See Here
https://twitter.com/TheLionelGreen/status/1339696539787137025
Without a marquee alliance to their name, Gabby and Lio seemed easy targets in the immunity challenge. The goal was to swim through ice cold water, retrieve a block of ice with a kill in it and then place that kill in an opposing team’s station. The last team to have three kills in their station wins. Once again, it was Fessy, Aneesa and their social game that won out as they won immunity with no kills in their station. Gabby and Lio finished in the middle of the pack. Lio had an opportunity to put the first kill in their station but made the smart move to not do so. Sometimes staying unnoticed is the best way to float through the early rounds and that seemed to be Gabby and Lio’s strategy this week. The strategy worked as Gabby and Lio remained safe for the week as it was Joseph and Kyle who were chosen for the male elimination with Kyle getting the win. Kyle chose to shake up the game, stealing Kam from Josh, which left Josh to partner with Kyle’s former partner, Nany, and rogue agent CT to get Joseph’s partner, Big T. Joseph’s elimination meant that Lio was not the first rookie eliminated this season.
Episode 3 – One By One…
Don’t be fooled by @TheLionelGreen my man can wrestle and scrap. #thechallenge36 https://t.co/3io8UN1JBn
— Where’s Charlie? (@gofindcharlie) December 24, 2020
While Lio may be small, he’s pretty strong for his size. In the immunity challenge on episode 3, he had a chance to show that strength in a challenge that wouldn’t have been out of place in the wrestling universe. Competitors had to stand on top of a moving semi truck, in the rain, and push their opponents off onto an attached net. Kinda like the Royal Rumble, only instead of pushing your opponents over the top rope, it was pushing them off a moving truck. Sounds like a great new match concept.
Gabby and Lio were paired off against Amber B and Darrell. Lio’s form was certainly on display as he used his technical wrestling background to keep the larger Darrell at bay. Unfortunately, neither was able to get the other into the net so despite Gabby winning in her pair, the guys’ timing out made it so that neither won the challenge. Once again however, the all-rookie team stayed under the backstabbing radar and staved off elimination as the house sent Devin to the Crater and the double agents, Kaycee and Leroy, sent Wes. In the end the two friends battled to the end and it was Devin who came out on top. Without a partner, due to a medical issue that caused Nicole to leave the show, Devin chose to break up Cory and Tori, leaving Cory to take Wes’ partner Natalie. There was no rogue agent due to there being both a male and female elimination.
At the end of the episode, in a section called votes declassified, all of the contestants’ votes are revealed to the audience. And while Lio didn’t have much of a role during the show, his vote for Devin was pivotal and his line, “one by one, the vets will all fall down” was quite telling. Should Lio and Gabby get power in the house, it will certainly be interesting to see what they do with it.
More From LWOS Pro Wrestling
Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can catch MTV’s The Challenge Wednesday nights at 9 PM ET.
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