BY DC CUEVA
■ @DC408Dxtr @ TW / IG / YT
We'll look back at the key moments of the first three episodes ahead, and we'll also have more on that link between a Champ and a man who has made his fair share of headlines down in Florida. All of that is ahead as we at DCBLOG kick off our 5th Anniversary festivities.
THINGS TO KNOW
THE FIRST THREE EPISODES
● A NEW BALLGAME: With a competitive original spinoff and a dominant Champs win on the sequel, the trilogy begins with three titleholders, two iconic Champs and the new generation of females representing the incumbent party, and the opposition of celebs & athletes being represented by a teen heartthrob, an Instagram icon/rapper's sister and the return of a British Star of Champs vs. Pros. It's no surprise that their meeting in center court before this begins is dominated by the champion ladies becoming young kids all over again seeing Drake Bell in front of their own eyes.
Once the first competition ends in what seems to still be a Champs vs. Stars season as it was on the first two installments, host Mike "The Miz" will announce that those who have the fastest times in the two heats will become captains for teams Red and Blue, and they will have power of picking their teams that will have Champs and Stars playing under the same uniform. This takes the page out of what we saw on Bloodlines where most of the season took place under an integrated two-team format of both regulars and their cousins/family members. The rest of the game follows along the line of what we're used with some other kinks... more on that soon.
Once the first competition ends in what seems to still be a Champs vs. Stars season as it was on the first two installments, host Mike "The Miz" will announce that those who have the fastest times in the two heats will become captains for teams Red and Blue, and they will have power of picking their teams that will have Champs and Stars playing under the same uniform. This takes the page out of what we saw on Bloodlines where most of the season took place under an integrated two-team format of both regulars and their cousins/family members. The rest of the game follows along the line of what we're used with some other kinks... more on that soon.
● HILLS, ICING & STARS: The competition begins with a race up a hill of tough stairs all while being drenched in lube. Here, carrying your own weight along that slippery route and having juggle that with a balancing act is key. Tony picks up where he left off in Europe by smoking everyone to win his heat (and captaincy of Team Red), while the small size that Drake and Casper Smart have see them make it up top over the champs girls and their Stars colleagues. The second heat sees CT notch the top time & Team Blue leadership in a 2nd heat that sees everyone struggle to make it up, including Shane treating this course as his own bowling alley knocking down the girls like pins.
In the first competition as integrated Red and Blue teams, they play human shuffleboard and seeing the players glide their way like Olympic curling stones. Both teams split their two rounds and figure out that just trying to hang on without having your hands touch the ground is a harder thing to do... ask Tony and Hennessy who are caught doing that in a challenge the Red Team win. And last week, the teams tackle a jungle gym to untangle colored ribbons wrapped around it, and the teams deploy contrasting strategies to get the job done. Team Red decide to treat CT as a stair for everyone to step on to get to the higher parts, as well as pair up their players by means of size... that, along with Blue's shortcomings, is the difference in them winning last week.
In the first competition as integrated Red and Blue teams, they play human shuffleboard and seeing the players glide their way like Olympic curling stones. Both teams split their two rounds and figure out that just trying to hang on without having your hands touch the ground is a harder thing to do... ask Tony and Hennessy who are caught doing that in a challenge the Red Team win. And last week, the teams tackle a jungle gym to untangle colored ribbons wrapped around it, and the teams deploy contrasting strategies to get the job done. Team Red decide to treat CT as a stair for everyone to step on to get to the higher parts, as well as pair up their players by means of size... that, along with Blue's shortcomings, is the difference in them winning last week.
● SAME GAME, NEW THINGS: Despite the twist being laid down early on of Champs and Stars competing on the same team, theoretically it is still a Challengers vs. Celebrities game in a few ways. In Week 2, Wes, Kam and Booby are enjoying dinner, and where she and the NBA player flirt and make pledges to each other to stay loyal. But as we know, habits can die hard in an MTV reality atmosphere, and when nomination time comes in Week 2, Booby decides to put his Stars team over his crush by voting Kam to eventually go into the first female elimination which she then loses to Brooke Hogan. Things are further compounded when an extra twist of a losing elimination player is offered, but Booby's deciding vote leads Kam out the door.
Once the twist gets announced, it also becomes a game within a game more than we saw in the first two seasons. Wes and Louise share a moment after that second elimination where, after it was made clear earlier on that they would work together towards potentially making it all the way to the end, they have dinner out to discuss her move of rallying her Stars troops to the deliberations that sent Brooke in. Despite having been on just that one Challenge in Champs vs. Pros and the show not airing in Britain, she tells him that she learned how to play the game just from seeing the Master do his work over the years. The next week, Louise brings over Casper to come up with plans to turn on Wes and put him into the next guys' Arena, which should make things a bit testy, shall we say.
Once the twist gets announced, it also becomes a game within a game more than we saw in the first two seasons. Wes and Louise share a moment after that second elimination where, after it was made clear earlier on that they would work together towards potentially making it all the way to the end, they have dinner out to discuss her move of rallying her Stars troops to the deliberations that sent Brooke in. Despite having been on just that one Challenge in Champs vs. Pros and the show not airing in Britain, she tells him that she learned how to play the game just from seeing the Master do his work over the years. The next week, Louise brings over Casper to come up with plans to turn on Wes and put him into the next guys' Arena, which should make things a bit testy, shall we say.
● THE STANDOUTS: For the standouts so far, one who has come out of the shadow of being a famous ex has been Casper. He finished 2nd in his heat of the first challenge, but even with being picked to go on Team Blue he is nonetheless voted into elimination… but comes away victorious against who was arguably the fittest athlete on paper of the Stars team, Arian Foster. Two weeks later, he finds himself in a precarious position of wanting to win, nab MVP honors and do what he can to send the man who he sent him in that first week some payback… he overestimates this proposition and scenario by going out hard in his portion of the jungle gym challenge, but him not helping his team gets back to his team and loses, but shows how devoted he is in this season.
For the Champs, it's that guy Casper has been talking about: it seems as if the narrative of a man who had little going for him until fortunes changed late last year has been able to continue. Along with what happened in the first mission, the Tony story continues to progress, including becoming MVP of that first week and putting Casper in. Then, we saw him and his hands get caught not keeping them to himself in shuffleboard and getting tipped over into the pool by The Miz. But it's this past week where Tony shows he's here to compete when he faces the one who went him home on Invasion, Shane, in corn-hole with different objects compared with what we're used to playing that game in our backyards. Tony wins that elimination and further his standing going into tonight.
● HENNESSY LOSES IT: And then, there's last week. Going into this season, there was a lot of buzz surrounding Hennessy for the fact that she has a sister who has had an amazing April in having a #1 album, chart-topping singles, a public reveal of a baby bump, a co-hosting gig with Jimmy Fallon and being a headliner at Coachella... and Hennessy also has a strong Instagram following that, on paper, would help to bring in the hip-hop crowd to Champs vs. Stars and those who had watched her & her sis on Love & Hip-Hop.
When the time to nominate players after last week's challenge arrives, it then becomes a long wait for everyone to get themselves settled in: some thirty minutes before Hennessy shows up. When she finally takes her place in the room, she and Devin get into words and threatens to quit as she doesn't want this experience to damage her strong brand during a time that she and her sister would grab the spotlight... watch what happens below and see why she decides to do what T.O. did last year.
When the time to nominate players after last week's challenge arrives, it then becomes a long wait for everyone to get themselves settled in: some thirty minutes before Hennessy shows up. When she finally takes her place in the room, she and Devin get into words and threatens to quit as she doesn't want this experience to damage her strong brand during a time that she and her sister would grab the spotlight... watch what happens below and see why she decides to do what T.O. did last year.
HURRICANE HENNY HAS LANDED! #ChampsVsStars pic.twitter.com/oLlxKZmzLE— The Challenge (@ChallengeMTV) May 2, 2018
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#DCExtraTime
A NOTE ON RONNIE...
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| Twitter @IamMikeyP |
We are not covering the episodes weekly on here because of the fact that Jersey Shore already gets more than its fair share of coverage from other sites due of course to its massive following... but we'll be offering our Look at the show's history later during this cycle - and tweets from that show have also been archived just in case we would want to do episode posts on here. But there was something that took place this past week that was too big to ignore that also has a link to the Trifecta.
The last time MTV's favorite housemates were in South Florida for Season 2 in the summer of 2010, "The Note" was all the rage... but this time, the focus of the past few weeks has been on Ronnie. Everyone who watched the show's original run know that he and Sammi Sweetheart were in one of reality TV's most high-profile romances... one that spanned the show's six seasons on MTV. You couldn't keep your eyes of what they might do next in this on-again, off-again relationship.
Just a few short years ago, Sam/Ron called it quits yet again and the both of them went on to romances of their own, and for the ladder there was the news that was revealed on Christmas weekend that he would become a new dad. Coming into Miami, Ronnie knew that with parenthood forthcoming, everything would have to change... something that those like Cory, Tony and so many others in the Trifecta have had to grapple with since they got the news that they would be parents.
But late in Episode 3, him having some glasses of his signature "Ron Ron Juice" and a night at the club, as well as lingering thoughts about the only original housemate to not make the trip down to Florida, would catch up to Ronnie. Him getting down with a topless girl in the club was caught on social media, led to uneasiness with his baby mama Jenn back home, including reports of him being kicked out of his house after the episode aired... leading to much speculation from the red-top press about what has gone wrong for the man who defined the word "grenade" in the MTV vocabulary. All should come to a head this week when Jen finally flies down to Florida to possibly confront him.
If you've checked out previous posts on here, then you know that there is an indirect link between a "Champ" on Team Champions and the man at the heart of the drama so far in Miami. Kailah's boyfriend and a jack of all trades in the showbiz world, Mikey P., has known Ronnie for a long time dating back to when Mikey was on the cast of 2008 MTV show From G's to Gents with Farnsworth Bentley. They and Kailah all got to hang with Pauly D. and Kevin Hart at one of Las Vegas' famous summer weekend pool parties during Labor Day Weekend last year, and they were at Ronnie's baby shower before he whisked off to South Florida for, as it appears right now, an ill-fated trip into another one of those scenarios that he is in at the moment.
As the past two episodes have been going down on Jersey Shore, Ronnie has gotten to hang out with his Vegas friends a bit -- all the more needed as he continues to endure the rough seas he's in right now. He revealed his new baby girl on social media the past few days, and last week had to apologize publicly for bringing the private matters of what took place in an Instagram Live chat out into the open and reassuring that his daughter will be his first priority. This latest bout, of course, has echoes of what we saw with Tony on Challenges past and his Real World of his bad behavior being caught on camera, but responsibilities to his two kids back home eventually led him to the spot he is in right now where he didn't c .
Mikey took the opportunity to respond to everyone and pledge his support for Ronnie on Instagram last week at @iammikeyp: "There are two sides to every story. I don’t give a fuck what you think you saw or heard or whatever. I’ve been one of @realronniemagro ‘s best friends for 10 years now. Don’t come at me with some bullshit, i ain’t tryna hear it. PIPE DOWN. #rideformydogs".
And that is all for us this week. Next week will be a usual week of sorts around here as we'll be covering tonight's and Thursday's episodes with the 'Pulse and recaps of both and more... except for one very special reason. This coming Friday is the fifth anniversary of the very first post published by this very website, which came on May 11, 2013. Thus, we will be celebrating our birthday both this week and all month long including a look back at some of our most memorable stories, the Pulse looking back at some of the biggest moments of the past five years, and much more. We'll also plan to have our long-promised Reality Debrief recapping both 2017 and the first half of 2018 during this cycle, and much more. As always, follow me at @DC408Dxtr for more on what you can expect, and as always your input is appreciated.
Enjoy this week's episodes (follow DCNOW at @DC408DxNow and at #DCChallenge for all the interaction), and we'll talk to you in a few days. Happy DCBLOG Week.
- I AM DC
Mikey took the opportunity to respond to everyone and pledge his support for Ronnie on Instagram last week at @iammikeyp: "There are two sides to every story. I don’t give a fuck what you think you saw or heard or whatever. I’ve been one of @realronniemagro ‘s best friends for 10 years now. Don’t come at me with some bullshit, i ain’t tryna hear it. PIPE DOWN. #rideformydogs".
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And that is all for us this week. Next week will be a usual week of sorts around here as we'll be covering tonight's and Thursday's episodes with the 'Pulse and recaps of both and more... except for one very special reason. This coming Friday is the fifth anniversary of the very first post published by this very website, which came on May 11, 2013. Thus, we will be celebrating our birthday both this week and all month long including a look back at some of our most memorable stories, the Pulse looking back at some of the biggest moments of the past five years, and much more. We'll also plan to have our long-promised Reality Debrief recapping both 2017 and the first half of 2018 during this cycle, and much more. As always, follow me at @DC408Dxtr for more on what you can expect, and as always your input is appreciated.
Enjoy this week's episodes (follow DCNOW at @DC408DxNow and at #DCChallenge for all the interaction), and we'll talk to you in a few days. Happy DCBLOG Week.
- I AM DC
