DC ExtraTime: Asaf The Ninja Warrior

 FOLLOW-UP  From Summer '17:

 "The Many Sides of Asaf"

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BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB/TK

Courtesy: Elizabeth Morris/NBCUniversal

Seven years ago at this time in the summer of 2015, a young man traveled all the way from the Middle East out to Los Angeles to pursue the most ambitious of any American dream: making it big in the entertainment world. It's a journey that has taken Asaf Goren from the stage of perennial FOX summer staple So You Think You Can Dance to a slew of reality television shows both here in the U.S. and back home in his native Israel, all while achieving a resume both on television and in other forms of this industry of arts & entertainment that would sure make his family proud.

A year after making the Top 16 on SYTYCD, Asaf went onto Season 4 of MTV's Are You The One?... and later on, he flew back to the homeland to compete on a celebrity season of Big Brother Israel and came away with the top prize. Two years ago, Asaf competed on The Challenge: Total Madness and was in and out of Europe in one week... and if you have a good enough knowledge of this whole MTV Reality world -- even including shows you might not watch, then he also went on a date with Teen Mom's bad girl Farrah Abraham. And those are just reality shows: he also appeared in a Britney Spears music video, walked a runway at New York Fashion Week, and collaborated with 80's icon Boy George.

Just a few weeks ago came the latest addition to that amazing CV that Asaf has put together over these past seven years: trying his luck on a show that one fellow and reviled Challenger has mastered. But when a show like one that airs outside the Paramount Global ecosystem features that same kind of high-flying action but with a different kind of game and setting than what we're used to, then the transition from being an all-around reality star into a "Ninja" was a smooth one for this jack of all trades.

DC ExtraTime: Asaf + Boy George - Rainbow in the Dark

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB/TK

As we count down the final days of this trying year, something that has kept our spirits up in times like this has been the power of music, whether it's the big chart-topping hits that will make up the 2020 soundtrack, or the holiday songs that's playing everywhere right now as inch towards Christmas come next week. It's in that spirit that this weekend, DCBLOG proudly presents this ExtraTime Music Doubleheader featuring two rookies from the two seasons of MTV's The Challenge that have aired this year to give us something to think about for an hour & half other than the panic in this crazy world.

Ask anyone who has done the fifth major pro sport over the years and perhaps there is no feeling that is humbling than being the one who is chosen to go into the season's first elimination -- or in a few cases of late, the opening purge -- and falling short in that first one knowing you really didn't get a chance to prove yourself. It's most especially true when this happens to those who are competing for the first time on the show, knowing that the vets often have the upper hand and want to take care of the newbies first before they after each other when the business gets serious and the number of players thin out.

Season 35 of Total Madness earlier this spring provided us with the latest example of this hard reality: Asaf Goren added The Challenge to a solid reality TV resume that included Are You The One? Season 4 and its Second Chances spinoff, So You Think You Can Dance and Worst Cooks in America here in the U.S., and local versions of Big Brother and Ninja Warrior in his native Israel. But as is always the case, he was put into that first battle to face former Survivor castaway and Ex On The Beach alum Jay Starrett in the first elimination, and so began Mr. Loco's phenomenal rookie season.

Still, Asaf is a true jack of all trades who, as we wrote on here a few years ago, is more than just a global reality star: he's not only a son who loves his family so much, but also a dancer, a model and a musician. It's in the ladder that brings us to another chapter in his broadening CV: as MTV prepares to mark 40 years since "Video Killed The Radio Star" signed on the channel in the new year, earlier this month Asaf got to collaborate with one of pop's biggest icons in the MTV era... and it dates back to before he was even born.