The 36th season of The Challenge is here: it’s Double Agents, which features competitors pairing up in an attempt to win $1 million. But as the title of this edition suggests, all is not as it seems in a season filmed in Iceland filled with some devious twists and turns.
As usual, we’ll do some power rankings each week to see who’s in the lead … and who could fall short.
In this week’s episode: The final men’s gold skull gets handed out and the top team once again proves why it belongs on top.
The 36th season of The Challenge is here: it’s Double Agents, which features competitors pairing up in an attempt to win $1 million. But as the title of this edition suggests, all is not as it seems in a season filmed in Iceland filled with some devious twists and turns.
As usual, we’ll do some power rankings each week to see who’s in the lead … and who could fall short.
In this week’s episode: The drama in the house is turned way up as one player targets the Big Brother alliance, while last week’s big power move costs a team one of its partners.
The 36th season of The Challenge is here: it’s Double Agents, which features competitors pairing up in an attempt to win $1 million. But as the title of this edition suggests, all is not as it seems in a season filmed in Iceland filled with some devious twists and turns.
As usual, we’ll do some power rankings each week to see who’s in the lead … and who could fall short.
In this week’s episode: A big power move made by this week’s Double Agents looks like it’s going to backfire spectacularly.
The 36th season of The Challenge is here: it’s Double Agents, which features competitors pairing up in an attempt to win $1 million. But as the title of this edition suggests, all is not as it seems in a season filmed in Iceland filled with some devious twists and turns.
As usual, we’ll do some power rankings each week to see who’s in the lead … and who could fall short.
In this week’s episode: More partnerships get switched up after two close friends are forced into an elimination bout against each other.
The 36th season of The Challenge is here: it’s Double Agents, which features competitors pairing up in an attempt to win $1 million. But as the title of this edition suggests, all is not as it seems in a season filmed in Iceland filled with some devious twists and turns.
As usual, we’ll do some power rankings each week to see who’s in the lead … and who could fall short.
In this week’s episode: One of the favorites to win it all makes a seriously risky power move that could pay off or completely tank his chances.
The 36th season of The Challenge is here: it’s Double Agents, which features competitors pairing up in an attempt to win $1 million. But as the title of this edition suggests, all is not as it seems in a season filmed in Iceland filled with some devious twists and turns.
As usual, we’ll do some power rankings each week to see who’s in the lead … and who could fall short.
In this week’s episode: A key injury and some trash talking leads to one player going into The Crater … and emerging with a new partner. Meanwhile, a legend gets eliminated.
This week’s edition of The Challenge: Double Agents features one of the more wild challenges I’ve ever seen in the series’ history.
In this exclusive clip ahead of Wednesday’s episode (8 p.m. ET on MTV), we see host T.J. Lavin introduce “Road Kill,” in which the pairings must wrestle each other on top of a truck going pretty fast (50 MPH!!) … without wearing harnesses. There are nets on either side of the truck, but still: wow.
We’ve seen wrestling. We’ve seen stunts done on top of trucks in recent seasons. But both together? Nope. This looks really intense, which fits into what’s been a wild season so far.
The 36th season of The Challenge is here: it’s Double Agents, which features competitors pairing up in an attempt to win $1 million. But as the title of this edition suggests, all is not as it seems in a season filmed in Iceland filled with some devious twists and turns.
As usual, we’ll do some power rankings each week to see who’s in the lead … and who could fall short.
In this week’s episode: The Double Agents surprise everyone by sending in an unexpected pairing into elimination … and that was just the beginning of a wild ending to this episode.
The 36th season of The Challenge is here: it’s Double Agents, which features competitors pairing up in an attempt to win $1 million. But as the title of this edition suggests, all is not as it seems in a season filmed in Iceland filled with some devious twists and turns.
As usual, we’ll do some power rankings each week to see who’s in the lead … and who could fall short.
In this week’s episode: the competitors went through their first challenge, then paired up (which caused some expected drama) before a shocking twist at elimination changed everything.
Lio Rush has been everywhere in his young career — he wrestled in the NXT and WWE (where he once took a shot at Rob Gronkowski), and is a recording artist as well.
As we get set for this season’s premiere (8 p.m. ET Wednesday night on MTV), For The Win spoke to Rush about what it was like to go from the ring to a Challenge house and what’s next for him after this season (this interview has been edited and condensed).
How did you find yourself on The Challenge?
The WWE had a huge, mass release at the beginning of the pandemic, and I was let go. Super disappointing, but a couple of weeks later, I ended up getting an email from some people at MTV and they asked me if I wanted to be a part of this show because they heard about what happened to me.
How were you feeling after that release?
I was lost. I didn’t know what my future looked like, and I didn’t know when things would get back to normal or if [the pandemic] would be the new normal. MTV came to the rescue and gave me a much clearer view of what my future looked like.
Had you heard of The Challenge before you were invited on?
For sure. My life has been so busy the past few years with me starting my wrestling journey. It’s very hard to watch television when you’re on TV, but I used to watch it all the time when I was younger.
Did you watch thinking, “I can do that!”
No. I saw a few seasons of it and I was so young at the time — I’m 26 right now — so I wasn’t thinking I could do it. I did think I was cool and I was familiar with a few other wrestlers who took the route of going from reality TV to wrestling, like Mike “The Miz” Mizanin.
How did you prepare for this? Did you do any scouting in recent seasons?
I looked at the season before [Total Madness] because there was a possibility I’d see these people on this season. I wanted to get myself not only familiar with the game, but with the people because of the politics involved. I prepared physically with my training.
What did you change with your training?
I was doing a lot more weightlifting because I knew I’d be coming in as one of the smaller guys, so I wanted to build my strength up a little bit. I knew that with the division I was in with wrestling, I wasn’t so much focused on strength because when you have guys under 205 pounds, you want to build up endurance and conditioning. So I was doing a lot of speed drills.
I know with people who have done this before, they’ve gone through a different process. I did think it was a pretty long process before we got to Iceland. We had to quarantine before and then quarantine in Iceland before you got to the house. That was a little tedious with all the build-up and anticipation, you just wanted to start already. That’s what we had to do in a time like this. We wanted to be safe at the end of the day.
We all know what happens with rookies on the show getting targeted early. What can you tell me about that?
The rookie thing, it’s different in my head. I think it’s because I’m coming from a different field. Other people are coming from reality shows. Me having success in professional wrestling and a name behind me, I didn’t necessarily feel like a rookie going into the house. I did feel like a stranger since a lot of people already knew each other from other reality shows. As for the other rookies, I knew that they got attacked first and typically, they’d gather together. I knew if I was put in a situation like that, I would have to be that person to stand up to people. I don’t take [expletive], I don’t like being pushed around and bullied.
So is being a pro wrestler an advantage in that way?
From a psychological standpoint, for sure. It’s not just lifting up people or taking a slam in wrestling, there’s a lot of acting that goes into things and backstage politics and adapting if things get screwed up. So I definitely think I had a huge advantage.
Coming off of this season and being back home, first thing I said was, I’m NEVER doing this again, this was crazy. But looking back on everything and seeing certain things I’ve experienced and things I would never do in my everyday life and people that I’ve met, I probably would do it again, as crazy as that sounds.
What are you up to now? A new album?
I’m working on singles, I like to record at all times to have stuff in the bank. If I want to put out an album, then I have it. I’m still working on music, wrestling and I’m also working on my first film, which is the Power Rangers movie. I’m super excited about that. I know things go complicated with COVID-19, we were in the middle of casting when it hit. Now, they’re working on the script. I’m not sure yet if I’m going to be a ranger, but I do know there are a ton of villains. I do like playing the bad guy, so we will see.
