Due to the heavy presence of graphics and video, "Who Are These Newbies?" is best experienced on desktops and advanced mobile devices. Some videos embedded contain adult language & situations, parental guidance is suggested.
In a tradition that spans what next year will be nine years on this ride, every time a new season of a few of the shows we cover kicks off we at DCBLOG give ourselves a tall task to go around the internet and social media to answer a burning question on the minds of most of you who visit us: "Who Are These Newbies?" This refers to first-time participants making their rookie debuts on The Challenge, or when big names from around the reality TV world come walking into the Ex On The Beach house. In a world where you prefer the OG's more than anyone else in Challenge Nation, we make sure to give these newcomers the proper welcome and respect they deserve to help you, the readers of this site, know them a bit more in us offering background, insight, perspective and context on who they are. To that end, over 140 people have been profiled on here spanning every new Challenger since Rivals II.
Double Agents marks the second Challenge season under the reunited ViacomCBS corporate umbrella since the merger between MTV's parent company and that of the CBS network completed a year ago this month. As reflective of both entities coming together once again for the second time in two decades, as it was on Total Madness the Season 36 rookie field will include those who come from shows that air across the expanded company's realm of reality favorites encompassing both the Eye and MTV two decades after the reality genre first made waves on free-to-air network television. And as was on War of the Worlds I, there is also representatives from outside the VCBS bubble in reflecting The Challenge's growth into the mainstream the past year, especially in offering fresh competitive content in this time.
But after the jump, we begin with the one that a good number of you are familiar with: she was part of television history last year when those who believe in loving anyone on a romantic level got their chance to shine. Get out that name tag and join us...
❤️ AMBER MARTINEZ
Are You The One
When Amber Martinez stepped into the AYTO house in Hawaii last year, the native New Yorker was among a group of sixteen singles who were lesbian, gay, bi, trans or queer given the opportunity to make history. Our preseason bio on her read, "For Amber, she goes all in and expects her partner to follow through, but has a fear that things may get out of control." Amber wasn't featured as much as the other singles who stole the buzz in Hawaii, but she become good pals in the islands with the year's biggest romance, Max Gentile & Justin Palm. She was also attracted to Middle Eastern Nour, who also appeared in the lone season of Quibi's reboot of 90s MTV hit Singled Out along with fellow single Basit.
You can be sure that Amber will be most active during this season: she co-hosts SpiLLL on YouTube with a couple friends who got to discuss her AYTO season plus other matters on the side. But it will be most especially true in Twitter Land: you might remember Amber's tweet about Nicole during Ex On The Peak (Amber's fellow castmate Kai also starred in her quarantine-themed episode of True Life), or when she got into it with Ninja Natalie last year... or igniting furor in Challenge Nation over Bayleigh & Melissa dropping out of the Total Madness final when not knowing that it was for their health and safety than what we are usually accustomed to when someone buckles under pressure for cash.
And for those who might be interested viewers to her rookie Challenge, there is one that stands out: last year during the Christmas holiday, Amber & Max (who we featured competing in a college Survivor season at Ohio State with Will Wahl from Jay's Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X season) got to meet up with the one & only Lady Gaga when she launched her new makeup line. We guess she'll be rooting her on this winter...
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🏠 AMBER BORZOTRA
Big Brother 18
Amber Borzotra grew up in Knoxville before moving out to LA and then at age 26 into the Big Brother 16 house six years ago alongside Cody, fellow All-Star & BB18 champ Nicole Franzel and Ariana Grande's brother Frankie. The esthetician considers herself a country girl, and thanks to where she grew up in East Tennessee is used to loving the outdoors in rock climbing, gun shooting and getting that feel for competition. In her BB bio, Amber described herself as "courageous, nurturing and a free spirit," while adding that not getting to talk to her family or being used to what she has back home would be the most difficult part of the experience being away on this nationally televised summer vacation. The life motto she gave can best sum up what 2020 has been for us: "S___ could be worse."
Going into the BB16 house, Amber stated her strategy of doing anything she can to win, but also stated her fear of snakes, spiders and eating bananas. And in the house, she would find herself part of the mighty Bomb Squad alliance with Cody, Frankie, Derrick Lavasseur and Zach Rance among others. Amber would then assume title of Head of Household in week 2 and put up Nicole and Hayden for nomination, only for her to lose that designation in a Battle of the Block challenge. Amber herself went into those Battles in several of the following weeks and won immunity from eviction, but she would eventually get the house keys swiped out on Day 42 unanimously with the charge led by Frankie. But this came not before the razor-thin tensions she had with another CBS Reality star, Big Brother & Survivor double threat Caleb Reynolds.
For one who takes pride in going a whole year being a virgin and not go on a date and who would stay humble while in the spotlight, Amber B. was rumored on the grapevine of being on the shortlist for Big Brother 22 in quarantining and sequestering beforehand. Had the cards been dealt her way, she would've been been in the house instead of Christmas Abbott - and the romance with the BB19'er and Memphis Garrett would not be happening now as is her going onto Double Agents. But being on Big Brother and now The Challenge isn't the only national TV appearance for Amber: she and fellow S16 houseguest Brittany Martinez also appeared on America's Funniest Videos as seen below. Of course, this TV experience doesn't count the many modeling gigs and ads she's appeared in since we last saw her.
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🏝️ NATALIE ANDERSON
Survivor & Amazing Race
But before that, Natalie Anderson first made her reality TV debut on Season 21 of The Amazing Race in summer 2012. She grew up in Edgewater. NJ outside of the Big Apple after spending time in Sri Lanka where she was a physical therapy student, and who described herself as "crazy, strong, confident, a tomboy and spontaneous" along with being a passionate CrossFit enthusiast. The former women's rugby player came onto the global Road Rules on a team of twins with her sister, peace officer Nadyia who formed an explosive duo who made their mark from when the Race began in Pasadena and continued around the world as one of the season's most entertaining pairs and had a physically strong game to back it up. Natalie & Nadyia eventually finished in 4th place at summer's end, and then competed on the All-Stars season two years later where they were the first ones eliminated.
But Race All-Stars would be a pit stop en route to the twins making their way to Survivor, a show Natalie first watched with the first Blood vs. Water season and where she had to translate her game to the grueling, Hunger Games-like nature of the outdoors and being in the middle of nowhere. Natalie's experience on Bloodlines II in San Juan de Sur began with mixed emotions: while she won the first immunity challenge Nadyia would be unlucky in being the first one eliminated much to her teary-eyed sister. As she continued to plow along, Nat would have it out with Season 29's most controversial player, disgraced baseball pitcher John Rocker while also forming an alliance with future champ Jeremy Collins that lasted until he was blindsided at midway. She played her own game in teaming with coupled players then sending them home one by one as she won one individual immunity challenge, used another immunity idol to also swipe away a key alliance member en route to being Sole Survivor.
Being a champion and $1 million richer gave Natalie an automatic ticket to Survivor's most recent season, Winners at War earlier this year, and where her return began the same way her second Amazing Race season began: being the first one voted off. It's pretty much clear Challenge Nation doesn't like players getting brought back after being eliminated other than to replace someone who got injured or quit, but over in Survivor Land getting a second chance is something their fans are used to also and are also welcoming a bit. And Natalie was the first occupant of Season 40's Redemption Island: Edge of Extinction, and where she competed on a separate island with fellow castaways with the goal of making a shock return into the game later on. She would do exactly that in consistently winning every challenge while having to live off of only some food & water while in secrecy - and in being the one with the longest stay in Edge Island in 33 days, she made her way back in using two immunity idols to head into the final four and eventually finished runner-up in the quest for $2 million to Tony Vlachos.
The Survivor Fandom Wiki's list of statistics are aplenty: a tie for most overall challenge wins for a female champ at 13 and fourth overall, the only one to come onto Survivor from elsewhere at CBS and win, among a handful of those of Asian descent to be Sole Survivor, and who was invited to - but didn't make it up on stage - Survivor Night on The Price is Right. Of course, so many of those in the Survivor fanbase loved her performances on her two Survivor seasons so much, they've demanded her to go onto The Challenge at the next possible point, and now here she is.
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🤼♂️ LIONEL "LIO RUSH" GREEN
Professional Wrestler
Lionel Gerard Green grew up in Lanham, MD in the Washington, D.C. area to a pair of musical parents, and where his bedroom was next to where his dad recorded gospel music. In a way, he has followed in their footsteps: this summer he released his first two studio albums a year after dropping his debut joint "Scenic Lullaby," which he sees as a first-hand story of the upbringing he had to endure growing up. As a teen and then into the early years of being an adult, Lio's mental health became so big an deal he had to spend time in a District hospital after learning about a biological brother only after he died, and Lorenzo Green is immortalized on a tattoo on his stomach. But today, he's approaching his second anniversary of being a married man to a wife with two kids.
But while he shares a musical pedigree with his parents and being a family man himself, Lionel's heart lies is in the ring: like most other pro wrestlers, his career in the world of grappling began in Olympic-style wrestling in high school before making his way to the pros starting out on the independent circuit in Maryland. He won several bouts and titles, both solo and on tag teams and even survived a six-way elimination on the regional level before moving to Combat Zone Wrestling where he adopted his nickname of Lio Rush, ignited several feuds within the promotion and won both its Wired and World Heavyweight Championships. And he advanced onwards to Ring of Honor, where he spent two years in the promotion run by media conglomerate & right-wing ally Sinclair, before a jump into the big time.
In summer 2017, Rush signed with WWE and in October he made his debut with pro wrestling's biggest promotion on their developmental circuit NXT. He made three appearances on television losing all of them, plus got in some hot water after being caught joking about the release of female wrestler Emma. The following year, Lio was upgraded to the main roster and placed in the cruiserweight division with its post-Smackdown show 205 Live, taking down several wrestlers and earning an unsuccessful shot at its championship in the sub-heavyweight division. He also formed an alliance with current U.S. Champion Bobby Lashey when he won the Intercontinental Championship and Lio was his hype man.
But after competing at WrestleMania 35 the next month, Lio would take a self-imposed summer sabbatical from the WWE before returning back to NXT and the cruiserweights, where he defeated Drew Gulak to lift the championship belt and defended it against Raul Mendoza. He then took to the ring for his first major PPV bout on the Survivor Series main card and defended that NXT belt against Akira Tozawa before relinquishing the title to Angel Garza, and then a lost a second chance to regain the belt to Jordan Devlin in February. That turned out to be his last appearance for the WWE, as the pandemic and the shutdown of live wrestling saw him be released from the promotion, and Lio returned to the indie circuit over the summer. And as Double Agents premieres here at home, Lio is readying to compete this weekend in the 8th annual Super J-Cup put on by New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
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🎤 JOSEPH ALLEN
Motorcyclist & America's Got Talent
The person who follows in Ninja's footsteps is Texas native Joseph Allen, who at first glance would be one who got here from a most unlikely show, but behind all that is one who spent a good part of his life doing something TJ Lavin knows about well: riding a two-wheeler. He grew up racing motorcycles in competing in its most competitive form of motocross and where jumping over 100 feet is par for the course. But the brutal nature of riding on those bikes would take its toll: Joe broke many bones over the course of his career, there are now nine screws, a 4-inch titanium plate, four internal nylon ropes and other things inside his body to keep the bones and ligaments working functionally.
Joe grew up in a family where his two parents divorced, tied the knot again and where he found himself living quite literally in a full house as the youngest of twelve siblings. And after seeing all the injuries on the dirt pile up, his parents made a suggestion to him: pursue going after a college diploma -- and while in college out in Arizona he found a newfound talent: singing, songwriting and performing. When his fellow students began to dig his original music, he grabbed a job to help the bill on building a recording studio in his dorm and began learning to perfect his craft all by himself.
Joe spent many days and nights producing and recording his music -- including playing the piano, engineering and mastering in addition to behind the mic, and then released his songs to the point where not only did his college love it, but also a growing fanbase on social media across the country. And in a story which we'll be elaborating on later during this Challenge season, it all culminated with a trip to the big stage of last year's fourteenth season of America's Got Talent.. and where he got to perform the original track "Footprint," which impressed the judging panel so much it scored him the show's signature moment of any episode: a Golden Buzzer hit on by Deal or No Deal's Howie Mandel, and direct advancement to the live shows and the quarterfinals, where he dedicated his performance to his mom.
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🏋️ NAM VO 🇩🇪
Beastmaster & Fitness Trainer
By the sound of his name, Nam Vo has roots in Vietnam as his parents hail from that part of the world, but as he begins his birthday month (he celebrates it on New Year's Eve) he has spent his whole life in Frankfurt, Germany. Ten years ago, he weighed in at only 136 lbs. but this skinny teenager was determined to add some mass to his 6'2" frame... and two years later he had grown to just around 210 lbs. after joining a local gym just a 100-meter sprint down the street from his residence. Later, he added a part-time job at a local supplement store where he garnered insight into all aspects of the healthy lifestyle.
According to Greatest Physiques, Nam's weekly training routine sees him do weights, cardio and flexibility six days a week, and he loves to work on his chest at the flat barbell bench press, and his back & midsection with pull-ups and dragonflies. He currently has a 275,000 strong Instagram following that now sees him as a fitness model, coach for the German Men's Health magazine and rising actor who takes word of the life motto that "if you can dream it, you can do it... nothing is impossible."
At first glance, Nam might be along the lines of what we had with Alan on War of the Worlds: a Fresh Meat rookie in being someone just like us getting chosen to compete on The Challenge... but Nam does have experience on a competitive reality television show. As the platform prepares to add The Inferno II and The Duel next week to the two aforementioned AYTO seasons, Netflix has an entry to the field of competition series where players have to overcome a huge obstacle course along the lines of ANW.
Nam appeared on the first of the three seasons of The Ultimate Beastmaster, executive produced by Rambo himself, Sylvester Stallone. Unlike its more well-known show in the subgenre, Beastmaster is conducted on a freeze-out bracket basis until one player is left and who progresses into the finals. Nam took on the mighty course and finished second - missing out on that ticket to the championship... but being able to go up against that was more than enough to earn a trip into his Challenge debut.
Nam is quite impressive to say the least. What a fucking recovery pic.twitter.com/ok7zkZKdAV
— Your Allan Aguirre (@TheAllanAguirre) November 22, 2020
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❤️ GABBY ALLEN 🇬🇧
Love Island UK
Gabrielle "Gabby" Allen comes to us from where The Beatles, Melissa and her new kiddo call home: Liverpool. Like Joss before her, Gabby is a fitness enthusiast who is a model and a trainer, and she has followed in the lead of Emily Schromm in the online fitness community where she joined Britain's top-rated fitness app Fiit and scored a lucrative fitness deal that's netted her a cool £100,000 annual paycheck. And with other endorsements and operating her own gym plus doing some dancing on the side, her worth is measured at a cool £1.3 million as well as having over 1.1 million Instagram followers to an account full of workout videos, pics of her wearing a bikini and her with her new man, British outfitter Brandon Myers.
Gabby arrived onto the UK telly's much earlier in the third series of Love Island UK in 2017 when she entered the villa on Day 7 as part of the second wave of late arrivals a week after the season began in Marbella, Spain. In her Love Island bio read, she described herself as "spontaneous, adventurous and always up for a party," and named Justin Bieber as her celebrity crush. Romantically, she saw herself as "an all or nothing girl. If she's in a relationship she puts everything in which can lead to being hurt." She is not for getting with bad boys, loves to do long talks with guys, but was heartbroken by getting cheated on many times in the past before going into the house.
In the villa, she was in the top three of all but four challenges including kissing, pole dancing and everything else you can imagine during that guilty pleasure. But wehen British hip-hop artist Marcel Somerville ("Rocky B" of UK collective Blazin' Squad) instantly laid his eyes on Gabby when she entered the house, once they coupled up for their first three dates they never let go of one another the rest of the summer. They spent the rest of their stay together through the last coupling ceremony where they finished in 4th place & out of the money, and it continued for some time after they left Spain until a disasterous weekend vacation where Marcel got close to a hotel guest after a big blowup which exposed other times where he cheated on Gabby.
Gabby made her way to the last series of Celebrity Big Brother UK sharing a house with Kristie Alley, Bad Girls Club's Natalie Nunn and an alum of British guilty pleasure The Only Way is Essex, Dan Osbourne. The Islander was romantically linked to Dan after they were spotted vacationing back in Marabella with Celeb Ex's Calum Best before moving into the house, and they were largely in the background of that summer as they quietly made their way to finale night but she was the first to go in 6th place behind him, the Cheers star and eventual winner Ryan Thomas of UK soap EastEnders. She ended things with Dan afterwards, and Gabby has also been linked to a member of the Season 14 winners of The X Factor UK, Myles Stephenson of Rak-Su.
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🌴 OLIVIA "LIV" JAWANDO 🇬🇧
Shipwrecked
Olivia "Liv" Jawando was a 19-year-old waitress from a Manchester council estate (public housing as they refer it to in the UK) when she went onto the show that first gave British fans the man they call Bear - one who's made some headlines in the past couple days. She was the first of the girls to arrive on the island and who admits to being very strong and holding her own while being kind-hearted and funny and yet having an problem with her attitude which can get hot-headed at times - something we love. She adds, "I am not one to take any s*** off anyone. If anyone says anything, I will pull them up on it."
In telling the Radio Times about her experience Liv adds, "I think everyone loved me and they thought 'look at this cocky 19-year-old!' I think they thought I was funny, upfront and brutal. But I am 19 and I am from a council estate. That is what you get." And there, she found herself in plenty of drama: below she got into a couple big blow-ups while on the island and she had a crush on Chris Jammer, the same gay guy who had a on-screen relationship with the other Shipwrecked castaway from last year's WOTW, Sean Lineker. There was even her passing gas while in the company of an inflatable flamingo, before making a Bananas-like choice on behalf of her tribe at the end of their season...
And here's the most unique factoid about Liv: in a post on Reddit in the build-up to tonight's premiere, soon-to-be podcast host Aneesa brought up a milestone that will now be set. As she was born in April of 1999 and with the first season of the show having aired a year earlier, Liv will become the first Challenger in its 21-year history to compete the timeframe of the show's existence... and she was still an infant when Mark Long and Beth S. made their Challenge debuts later that year. And oh, Liv will soon become Mummy Liv: she recently posted a pic of a baby bump of a new kid due in the new year.
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🥇 LOLO JONES
Champs vs. Pros
To sports fans - and to those like me who follow year-round the world of high-performance sport outside of the two weeks of sports' biggest spectacle, Lolo has been competed at three Olympic Games and at numerous world championships. She is, perhaps, best known for clipping a hurdle in the homestretch of a women's 100-meter hurdle final in Beijing in 2008 that she was supposed to win - and four years later she finished in 4th & off the podium in London. And two years later, Jones was recruited to become a brakeman in the winter sport of bobsled and competed for Team USA at the 2014 Sochi Games - and is a task that Paulie Califiore hopes to follow when Beijing hosts the 2022 Winter Games.
But to a lot of you, Lolo was part of the first leg of the Champs vs. Stars trilogy - Champs vs. Pros featuring her, Gus Kenworthy, CM Punk and the one who everyone thought would be the first Pro to cross over into the main Challenge series: British decathlete Louise Hazel. Instead, it took until now for any athlete to come onto the regular show, and given that the pandemic has seen the Tokyo Olympics move into next year and before the Beijing Winter Games, we have Lolo on here. We all remember her name being written onto a lime when the Pros deliberated who would go in that first elimination, and it would be the first of several that the Olympic would go in, eventually losing in her third one below.
And aside from having competed on Dancing with the Stars, reality fans know Lolo from being on Season 2 of Celebrity Big Brother U.S. last year (thus, beating Da'Vonne and Bayleigh to being the first with a previous Challenge under her belt to go into the BB house, albeit a mini-one). Here, she had to get used to a new kind of game compared to what she went through on CVP, but thanks to having lived at Olympic Training Centers across the country made the difficult task of living with different personalities more easier to manage. Only here, she had not just fellow Olympian Ryan Lochte by her side, but she also had to deal with Lindsay Lohan's mom Dina, MTV alum Tom Green and Tamar Braxton, among others, and she finished with the bronze.
COURTESY: NBC OLYMPICS/USOC
An three-time Olympian who competed against four past Champions three years ago for charity headlines this field of Challenge newbies that, once again, demonstrates the growth of awareness of the fifth major pro sport into the mainstream. Something like bringing in people from the now red-hot genre of romantic reality shows, from a summer TV tradition of a once-again corporate teammate and even from overseas wasn't even possible when we started covering MTV Reality on here almost eight years ago. But like it or not, this has helped give The Challenge the time in the spotlight it deserves, and once again as it was some eight months ago, this will be the only game in town.
With Lolo, two Ambers, a Survivor champ, a pro wrestler, a motocrosser turned musician, Blac Chyna's ex, a fitness freak of dual nationalities and two Brits, once again this rookie class has something for everyone... and one that will give the vets and the champs something to think about in who they want to partner up with as fellow Double Agents. Not too shabby...
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Tonight is the premiere of The Challenge: Double Agents, and of course we at DCBLOG will surround this season with our wall-to-wall and acclaimed blog coverage each week with SocialPulse episode reaction from the cast and fans like you on social media, our take on the traditional episode recaps and our signature original storytelling through the ExtraTime series. Make sure to bookmark this site, and like, comment, share and subscribe to us on the social media platform of your choosing.
Unlike other websites and webcasts, DCBLOG gives special preference to cord-cutters and don't watch the episodes live like those with cable do... thus, our weekly episode coverage will appear on the weekend to give CC's the time to watch and catch up before we bring them and everyone else Inside MTV Reality and our specially-curated coverage during the biggest time of the entire week.
And after taking some time off from live tweeting, DCNOW will return from its sojourn with my live & curated commentary on the premiere on Twitter @DC408DxNow, which will be sandwiched in between special live tweets of the second and third episodes of Season 4 of Challenge fan Andres Rodriguez's Caucus Challenge spinoff series, The Life We Live Boston, coming up later. Happy New Challenge Year...
- I AM DC
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