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| Courtesy: Elizabeth Morris/NBCUniversal |
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.
Back in 2019 when the fifth major pro sport expanded into becoming inclusive of the whole reality TV community when it came to who can compete on the big show, War of the Worlds welcomed an array of first-time competitors. A emotional Big Brother champ became a permanent staple of the show, another was one who we now from the Shore franchise and eventually invited a fellow rookie to spend time with him at his place, and a Turkish heavyweight survived the toughest final ever to add to his legend. But the one challenger who garnered the biggest ire was an alum of American Ninja Warrior.
2022 marks twenty-five years since the Ninja Warrior franchise was first conceived when the Tokyo Broadcasting System aired the first season of what is known in Japan as Sasuke, whose name is derived from a fictitious character in Japanese storytelling circles. A spinoff of another sports competition series that aired in the Land of the Rising Sun, the show's format sees as many at 100 competitors try their luck at a four-stage obstacle course that is revered around the reality competition universe... and both it and an all-female version airs as a quarterly special every few months in between TBS' popular dramas.
No matter where the show airs, the Sasuke format is simple: complete a difficult obstacle course full of twists and turns over water, scaling heights and the like, and post a time fast enough to advance to the competition's next phase. In the case of American Ninja Warrior, thousands of competitors are chosen to take part in this multi-part competition when they start out in various sectional and regional competitions across the U.S., with all eyes on making the national finals on the outskirts of the Las Vegas Strip, where the ultimate test of the warrior is played out at summer's end. To be the season's last one standing is an honor, but getting to achieve what's known as "Total Victory" is something only three men have ever achieved in conquering Mount Midoriyama and the jackpot of $1 million.
American Ninja Warrior is in the midst of its fourteenth season, with past Challenge reunion host Zuri Hall, co-host of CBS' The Talk Akbar Gbaja-Biamila, and play-by-play man Matt Iseman in the booth... which at one time was occupied by Challenge vet Blair Herter and reunion host Jonny Moseley. This year, the age requirement for competitors has been lowered to 15, which has opened the door for plenty of new competitors to take to the course in regional round action in San Antonio and Los Angeles before the best of the best advance onward to Sin City. Likewise, the obstacle courses have been made tougher for contestants of all ages with the addition of obstacles entitled the "Warped Wall," "Piston Plunge" and "Kickboards" during the Alamo phase, and a special guest appearance by the Minions.
When Season 14 reached its semifinal phase in the Southland, Asaf didn't have to drive far to get to this phase of the game... and below, he attempted to get to a place he didn't get to go the last time we saw him on a reality competition show: the final. And he brought something else to the starting gate -- and a link to when he made his American TV debut on the dance floor.
The translation from Hebrew to English of his caption above read, "American Ninja Warrior 2022🔥 Hear Israel, Jehovah is our God, Jehovah is one it is a great privilege for me to succeed and reach the semi-finals of Ninja America, when I'm dressed in a tzitzit🔥 ✔️." And his semifinal run came just hours after he became a father: son Ivri was born a few hours after he competed.
🎽 🎽 🎽
Two postscripts to all this... first, Asaf wasn't the only notable figure to those in the MTV Reality world also got to compete on Season 14 of ANW: one who also competed Asaf's lone Challenge was one who we just saw on Season 3 of The Challenge: All-Stars. When we saw her on Total Madness, Kailah Casillas was in a relationship with Michael Pericoloso, better known simply as Mikey P., himself an MTV alum having been a castmate on 2008 show From G's to Gents with Fonzworth Bentley. The one who let Kailah get away (first by Stephen Bear and then by Love Island & EOTB alum Sam Bird) also took to the ANW course... and he too, also went in for a swim.
The pandemic caused a ripple effect on the television industry in many ways, including putting on hold both of MTV's reality dating franchises... and this spring saw the return of the American version of Ex On The Beach. We at this DCBLOG site have seen through the entire run of both that show and Asaf's first MTV series... we were there with the first group of twenty singles who came to Season 1 of AYTO in Hawaii, and most recently the LGBTQ-friendly season back in 2019. And we have covered each of the seventy-nine Truth Booths and Matchup Ceremonies of the series, plus every romance, hook-up, trip to the Boom Boom Room and perfect match possibilities over its eight seasons.
While we've been busy enjoying this summer and offerings of reality content on Paramount+, MTV, CBS and beyond the last few months, filming on a bunch of upcoming shows has been taking place. Season 38 of The Challenge is among those series that have been going on overseas, and it will include some familiar MTV love alumni -- and we will delve into all of that when the countdown to it begins in due course, along with international Challenges that will feed into the P+ World Championship.
As for the return season of Are You The One?, it too has also been filming over the course of the past month... and like it was for both Season 5 of Ex On The Beach and the ongoing All-Star Shore series that's currently airing on Paramount+, it will be taking place in the Canary Islands. But Season 9 will be conducted in a totally different manner than what was the case before: it's a global version of the show, as the singles chosen will hail from all around the world, in addition to just America. For the gist of it, it will mirror what we've seen on Too Hot to Handle on Netflix, where its cast makeup comprised of those from the U.S., Britain, New Zealand, Canada and beyond.
There will also be someone new taking over the hosting gig on AYTO: the first five seasons with Ryan Devlin, and the second half with Oscar winner Terrence J. Now -- and as revealed on that world-famous site for premature discussion of what's going on reality wise known as Vevmo, the spot of guiding the singles on their getaway challenges, revealing who gets picked for the Truth Booth and getting behind that podium for that light show will fall in the hands of Nev Schulman's Catfish co-hort & former Miss Teen USA, Kamie Crawford. And she'll have to transition from from discovering those who aren't bring truthful of who they are online to helping those twenty-two singles on the matchmaking process, as they eye on the magic number of 11 and $1 million, and maybe even true love. Of course, we will be covering AYTO Season 9 for you on here then.
- I AM DC
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