Who Are These Newbies? - The Challenge: Ride or Dies - Global Invasion

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BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

Earlier this winter, the finest nations and the best players in the world's most popular sport converged on the Middle East for the 22nd FIFA World Cup -- a tournament that had everything. From controversy before the opening kickoff, to plenty of upsets and intriguing headlines on & off the pitch, it was capped by a classic final confirming the GOAT status of Lionel Messi. Qatar punctuated an 18-month stretch of global sport and world-class soccer that, for the first time, took place not in its traditional spot in June & July but in the fall & winter, following two Olympics held not too far away in Asia that brought the world back together. And it's with this in mind that we bring you into this second half of our traditional introduction to the newcomers of the fifth major pro sport of The MTV Challenge.

Five years ago, the competition show that was invented in America that was an offshoot of the shows that started the reality television genre began its expansion to becoming as much as a global game as the sport that those outside of North America refer to as football. To help spice up the field of prospective rookie competitors when both The Real World and Road Rules ran their courses, draft calls were sent out to some unexpected territory that foretold the eventual re-merger of their networks' respective parent companies when houseguests from CBS summer hit Big Brother began competing on Vendettas a year before the CBS/Viacom merger. Joining Natalie Negrotti & Victor Arroyo that winter of 2018 were not one, but five people with different accents hailing not far from Spain in the United Kingdom.

The entry into this world of Kyle, Melissa, Joss, Kayleigh and Rogan heralded the return to American shores of the Shore franchise (Kyle coming in between Jersey and Floribama), the arrival of their original series Ex On The Beach that came after that season, and signaled the start of The Challenge to becoming a truly global TV show where everyone in this wide world of reality TV are welcome to join in. Since then, those from the Isles, the European Union, the Middle East, the Asia/Pacific region, Latin America and outside the Paramount corporate stable have taken part in every Challenge since -- and that includes international versions of this franchise that's feeding into the Paramount+ World Championship which kicks off in early March.

As we have reached the final act on Ride or Dies, some of the rookie competitors have been more than hanging tough in this new game that is mixing both old and new... and it has given us plenty of worthy new talent that will sure carry this series forward into its next twenty-five years. But all the way back towards the beginning of this, DCBLOG conducted our annual tradition of introducing players participating on The Challenge for the very first time on Season 38. And after the break, Part 2 of "Who Are These Newbies?" shines the spotlight on the two rookies who have more than exceeded our expectations to make it to the end, along with the latest set of players to come to us from Germany.

   ROOKIES OF THE YEAR   

Our first set in this second part is actually that duo who have dual representation from outside of the continental United States: one from our northernmost state in the union who first appeared on a third Love Island season in a familiar house to MTV fans... the other from across the TV dial who has his roots south of the border. And as they enter the final, the body of work that they've amassed this season -- most especially when it mattered most in elimination -- surely makes them Rookies of the Year.

OLIVIA KAISER

& HORACIO GUTIÉRREZ                 

● Love Island USA - Season 3 and

   Exatlón Estados Unidos (Telemundo)

During last summer's pair of shows that dominated our MTV buzz, Paramount+ played host to All-Star Shore while CBS welcomed The Challenge to primetime terrestrial network television. Both instances featured those from the U.S. adoption of UK summer staple Love Island, including a few from the last of the three seasons that aired on the Eye before it moved over to Peacock from Season 4 onwards. Those two shows saw Season 3'ers Johnny, Cashay, Javonny, Cinco and Shannon (and they called home the same house as Ex On The Beach 1)... and we saw the former earlier on in this Ride or Dies season.

   While Alaska indulges in as many as 19 hours of sunlight every summer and braves the cold all other times of the year, one of their own who was born in the 49th state came for a trip to the 50th in 2021: Anchorage native Olivia Kaiser came to Love Island Hawaii from the much-warmer climate of the Phoenix area, where she moved to from Alaska when she was a kid. When she came to paradise, it was on a leave from her gig as a small-business owner of a cosmetology company that offers numerous beauty services from micro blading and lip-brush touch-ups to makeup assistance for those throughout the Central Arizona area. It's because of this that she had quite the bad reception from social world without realizing that this was her day job before coming onto the Island.

   Love Island USA hasn't, as of yet, had that one romance that would make it all the way to the altar and garner the same enormous buzz as other reality couples, but it seemed Olivia was on her way to true love well beyond the show itself. Earlier on she didn't have much luck, but when she swapped Andre Brunelli for fan favorite Korey Gandy things started to turn around for Olivia... and that combination led them to becoming America's favorite and the top prize. But it wasn't exactly a love story that was meant to be Happily Ever After for Olivia & Korey: they broke up after she wanted their relationship to be just on a friendly level -- and he moved on as she became a single lady once again.

Horacio Gutierrez grew up right by the Mexican border on the Texas side of it in El Paso, where since he was a child he envisioned himself donning the El Tres. When he was 5 his dad first placed him in a kids' soccer club, but after a bad experience he wanted to quit... but motivation from his #1 fan kept him on the pitch. It's his love of the beautiful game that he hopes will inspire his family and his brothers, and it earned Horacio earned a scholarship that saw many colleges ring up his phone to join their team... but just before he walked the graduation stage at Mississippi College this college soccer star gave his skills a try on national TV -- and in another language.

   Despite its winter placing, the aforementioned Qatar World Cup saw record viewership on our shores for the men's tournament -- 26 million watched that final, and another twenty saw USA v. England on Black Friday. Those of us who love fútbol again indulged in hearing Andres Cantor... none more so than when he called his native Argentina gaining that third star on their crest. And owing to its NBCUniversal ties, his Telemundo network has invested quite a bit in producing original series made in the U.S., a sharp contrast to those adopted telenovelas his former employer Univision airs from Mexican sister Televisa... and one of those originals is where it all began for Horacio.

   Exatlon is the biggest contribution to global television of Brazil's Rede Bandeirantes, where strong contestants, athletes and celebs compete in what's essentially a franchised format version of what we get sometimes in two-team Challenges, culminating in one man & one woman reigning victorious. When Horacio went on Season 5 of Exatlon back in summer 2021, the kinesiologist came in as an injury replacement on Team Contenders and made a deep run all the way to the edge of the finals... only to be eliminated just before the dash to the cash. But that only fueled him for the season he's had in going 5-0 in the Zone, joining that handful who have won that many eliminations.

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   THE GERMANS   

When it comes to competition, the nation of Germany has won World Cups both as a divided and unified nation, as well as being a longstanding Olympic power. When it comes to broadcasting, it is where the world's first public television service signed on when a Berlin station signed on a year before the city hosted the 1936 Games -- the first to ever be televised. And after what we saw with Nam, three rookies from his homeland joined him for Ride or Dies... and it begins with his partner who had big expectations to bring her own brand of reality drama to the table the same way she brought to those back home.

EMMY RUSS                           

● Celeb Big Brother Germany

If you're a veteran of multiple reality series across different franchises, then you pretty much have made it beyond the D-list... when it comes to MTV fare we'd think of Cory and his five different shows from Real World to Teen Mom, plus the CV of AYTO alum has being on MTV and beyond. But when it comes to German television, perhaps no one compares to Elmira "Emmy" Russ, a 22-year-old model and actress born in Hamburg... and not much is known about her other than her CV on TV.

   Sporting the name of the most-coveted award in American television, Emmy has made quite the impact on the German reality landscape... and for the most notable show of interest (at least to us here) is that she has something in common with Asaf and Bear: she was on one series of the German version of Celeb Big Brother (pronounced Promi Big Brother in the native tongue). But that's hardly the only show she's been on: Emmy also appeared on the German version of one-time CW reality show Beauty & The Geek -- altered to Beauty & The Nerd for the local market there.

   And there's more: Emmy has also been on the Spanish version of French reality show Secret Story - also from the producers of the Big Brother format, and where it's similar to that show but where it's having to keep one's secrets from the other housemates). And below, some of her highlights -- but only if we got to see her more on this Challenge, hopefully she would've added much more to her resume.

COLLEEN SCHNEIDER 

& KIM TRAENKA           

● The Mole Germany

    and Prince Charming

As the other Germans who had a longer spell than Emmy, the first one in this last pairing came from a show that's a little bit more familiar to us and one that was ahead of its time when it debuted back two decades ago. The Mole has resurfaced on Netflix: if you're not in the know of what everyone is talking about now in the genre, the contestants work as a team to add cash to the pot only one will collect... and while the one who is last one standing takes the money & run, one of them is chosen from behind the fourth wall as the show's title name who is assigned to try and sabotage the players' efforts.

   Besides its two tours of duty, The Mole has been franchised out to eighteen other countries outside of the show's origin country of Belgium... and one who competed on its German version is Colleen Schneider, a 27-year-old who studied psychology prior to coming onto one of the reality world's most innovative formats -- known inside the nation as The Mole – Wem kannst du trauen?. At the end of that season which aired three years ago during the pandemic, she was found to be the titular character -- and with the kind of manipulative ways the show was known for back then that is now being reintroduced to those who love to Netflix & Chill, it seems just right for a Challenge game.

   As for Colleen's partner, he came to us from a unique slice of the reality world: a dating show that takes its cue from two shows in the genre. Kim Traenka competed on the third series of Prince Charming, a cross between The Bachelor and the gender-friendly AYTO Season 8 in which singles of the same sex (in this case, men) got to go for love with a male suitor... and he found love on there with a man named Maurice, which continued after the show ended until they broke up. Love show or not, Kim would've been a decent candidate to be on Ride or Dies anyway considering that he was a champion dancer... and as we speak, Kim has been tabbed for a Netflix gig.

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Ahead on here, we'll be following Olivia & Horacio as they try to upend the veteran establishment as the $1 million, 100-hour final of The Challenge: Ride or Dies unfolds... and we'll also be joining in on the fun of the latest racy, raunchy and red-hot party to take over Are You The One?. But that is just the short-term... we have more to come just after those as when it comes to introducing the various people of these MTV shows, this is just the start.

   World Championship aside, this is also MTV Love Season as both AYTO and Ex On The Beach are well into their new seasons... and the first of our next two editions of Who Are These Newbies? will introduce the one pair on the ladder with prior TV experience, and delve more into the interesting backgrounds of some of the AYTO hotties. The second that comes after that will introduce the global Challenge contingent, which is actually of particular interest to this Olympic fanatic as one of them is a gold medalist. Join us as our DCBLOG coverage of the shows you love continues across the rest of 2023 -- our tenth anniversary year Inside MTV Reality.

- I AM DC

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