DC SocialPulse: The Challenge All-Stars 2 - The $500,000 Finale

*** Advisory: #DCSocialPulse contains adult language, objectionable content and spoilers for some readers. Viewer Discretion is Advised. Due to its length, take frequent eye breaks if you're viewing this top to bottom. ***

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB/TK

It was back during one particular lost summer that a fan made a bold suggestion that would once again move the needle for the one reality competition show you love. Well, here we are two years later and fans of MTV's The Challenge have much more to talk about as -- right after we've gotten to witness history in the making in Los Angeles and before we head to Beijing -- we are about to wrap up another cycle of covering the fifth major pro sport with Season 2 of The Challenge: All-Stars on Paramount+.

When we left the action in Cancun, Mexico a few days ago on here, it was the final week of the regular season with the last regular challenge and elimination -- which at this site we refer to alternatively as "semifinal week." Having won in the arena the previous week, Melinda & Nehemiah really had nothing to compete for and had already claimed their spot in the final... but in a daily game where the teams had to solve a puzzle while aboard a moving truck they came away with the win, which set the stage for who was arguably the strongest pair of this season, Brad & Jodi, to go voted in. In the end, the Cutthroat champ and Duel I winner lost in that last arena... setting the stage for a final where anyone can win.

For the players who did make it to the end, they are all worthy of being finalists: Darrell has the unique status of winning those four titles in his first four seasons and won Season 1 of the Champs vs. Stars trilogy, while Janelle beat the rest of her Key West mates to victory lane on Inferno III. Jonna has the experience of having ascended to the top on Discovery's Endurance many years ago but this is her first trip to a final, while MJ has come here to win. Teck & Ayanna might be considered the bettor's choice to be eliminated first, but we have seen stranger things before on this show. And Nehemiah knows that feeling well considering what happened the last time he contested a Challenge in Mexico, and he would love nothing more than take the W... though his partner is the sentimental favorite for many after what happened to Melinda before coming here.

One final test awaits the final eight as they will take on the jungle in Yucatan as they battle each other and the stifling heat, as they will be pushed to their limits on a physical, mental and emotional level as they race all the way to the end. And after the break, it's the finale of Season 2 of All-Stars on the 2021 season finale of the DCBLOG MTV Reality SocialPulse... and thanks for joining us this Super Sunday...

Summer of Sports Winter Edition: My Olympic Obsession

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB/TK

Last year -- just as it was in 2015, DCBLOG devoted a series of posts to covering the world of sports to coincide with last summer's pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympic Games. In addition to covering the finale of Season 2 of MTV's The Challenge All-Stars this weekend -- during this month of February and continuing into the month of March as well, we're offering a special Winter Edition of "Summer of Sports" to cover not only the ongoing Beijing Winter Olympics, but also Super Bowl LVI which takes place this weekend in Los Angeles following the expanded 17-game NFL regular season and historic conference playoffs, as well as the traditional slate of big sports events of the year's first quarter.

If you know me from the social sphere, then it's likely that you know that I have four principal passions of mine: MTV reality TV shows, music, Las Vegas and sports. And on the topic of the ladder, the consequences of the past couple years has been able to produce a packed schedule of sporting events: more overlap among the four major sports leagues, international soccer, golf and so much more.

But if you've been following me on @DC408Dxtr in the past seven months or so, then you know that the main event is ongoing... and it's the one event than I look forward to more than any other: the Olympic Games. What we're seeing right now is taking place in a shorter turnaround than it has been in three decades: two Olympics being held within the space of a calendar year -- once the norm when both the Summer and Winter Games were held in the same year until a '90s scheduling change separated them and have made the Olympics a more frequent happening taking place every two years.

For this sports fan who loves so many of the kinds of sports that don't get the mainstream exposure, Olympics time means that I get to become a super-fan whenever the calendar hits summer or winter in an even-numbered year -- or in this case, last July 20th followed by February 2nd over a week ago. Whatever the case -- and aside from few exceptions like working on this blog and getting sleep, over the past decade or so I have altered my schedule for the one and only thing that I consider getting to binge watch when I go into full Olympic mode. Both Tokyo and Beijing represent the latest installment of this obsession I have with the world's greatest sporting spectacle.

DC SocialPulse: The Challenge All-Stars 2 - Semifinal Week

*** Advisory: #DCSocialPulse contains adult language, objectionable content and spoilers for some readers. Viewer Discretion is Advised. Due to its length, take frequent eye breaks if you're viewing this top to bottom. ***

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB/TK

Hello again everyone... we've now into the month of February, which as we described on here is a dream month for those who love competition. But before this blogger gets consumed by Olympic fever for the second time in six months as well as a Super Bowl matchup nobody expected over a month ago, DCBLOG has this business to take care of: covering the homestretch of Season 2 of The Challenge All-Stars -- and in turn a Challenge cycle that began when the flame in Tokyo went out back in August.

Last we brought you to Cancun on here a week ago last week (and after returning from a detour to edit my 2021 Vegas vlogs), the game had become to get a little bit serious in the teams being set in stone before Nehemiah's Palace alliance and Brad & the rest of the house took off for a challenge on monster trucks. But weeks after what we saw with Ayanna and Leah in that first elimination, there was a heartbreaking moment in the arena that didn't involve players competing against one another: a talk back home with her fiancé revealed that Casey had been competing while pregnant and had to withdraw, similar to what we saw with Michelle and Natalie last year and Melissa the year before that.

For all intents and purposes on this page, this site refers to the last week of the regular season on any Challenge season as "semifinal week," regardless of whether it's the normal show or a spinoff such as this. As we return to Mexico, it is no different as this game is reaching the starting line of the final, as the Stars take to the tarmac once again to undo complicated puzzles aboard a moving semi-wheeler. One team is already into the final by way of winning the last arena, but could they give a full 110% to put a leg up on the rest of the competition? And could what happens in the house and another having a sore back dent their hopes on making it to the end?

After the break, it's the 'Pulse of Semifinal Week on The Challenge All-Stars, and thanks for joining us...

DC ExtraTime: Finally Reunited on Winter Break - A Trans-Pacific Match is Together Again

 FOLLOW-UP  Love Knows No Borders: 

A Fight to Reunite in a Pandemic (May '21)

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB/TK

This week marks the start of an epic sporting stretch that rivals the twenty-plus times that America's four major leagues have played regular season games on the same day, or that May Saturday in 2015 when the NBA, NHL, baseball and the NFL Draft shared the stage with horse racing, boxing and many other big events. Today (February 2nd), mixed doubles curling begins the Winter Olympics in Beijing, China two days before the Opening Ceremony, followed in two weeks by Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles between the hometown Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals. Add the Daytona 500, All-Star Games, Royal Rumble, golf, college hoops, soccer and more -- and February is a sports fan's dream month.

In Australia, last weekend was championship weekend of the biggest annual international sporting event to take place in that sports-mad country. The Australian Open, tennis' first grand slam of the year, culminated down under in the capital of the nation's sporting obsession of Melbourne, where Ashleigh Barty became the first Aussie woman to win the crown at home since the late '70s, and Rafael Nadal winning his record 21st major title to surpass longtime rival Roger Federer. But before the first ball, the action was overshadowed off the court by the circus surrounding defending men's champ Novak Djokovic when he was deported for refusing to get a shot, and Peng Shuai's ongoing dispute with the Chinese government in the latest high-profile episode of #MeToo.

The situation involving Djokovic and the Australian government is the latest story that's put the world's only island continent in the spotlight... and as those on Capitol Hill start planning their midterm strategy, this spring will see Australians head to the polls for a generation-defining election. As it will be later this fall here, the events of the past few years will act as a referendum on Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his incumbent Liberal/National Coalition government. And it's with this backdrop that we offer a follow-up to a story that's been affected in a way by the goings-on in the national capital of Canberra, and one that now has its happy ending. Here, a multi-national couple separated by thousands of miles by not only a pandemic, but also politics that prevented them from a moment they never thought they would have just months ago: an MTV reality alum and his overseas girlfriend finally being reunited.