Two of The Challenge’s all-time greats battled for the last spot in TJ Lavin’s final for Season 40, but fans were disappointed at the elimination event.
It came down to former show winners Cara Maria Sorbello and Tori Deal, who had surprisingly become closer than ever before as friends and allies in Battle of the Eras.
The daily challenge, Bricks Fortress, involved players carrying bricks out of a castle and retrieving wooden boards to assemble a puzzle.
The men’s and women’s players who got their puzzles right first would win the event and get to decide who went into elimination.
The man and woman who finished behind the rest of their opponents would lose. The women’s loser went straight to the last elimination.
It ended up being Tori Deal finishing last, so daily winner Jordan Wiseley couldn’t save her from going into the elimination.
Since Jenny West was the women’s winner, Rachel Robinson and Cara Maria were left as the winners’ options to send into elimination.
Cara battled Tori in elimination after previous feuds
Due to a previous agreement to protect Rachel, Jordan chose to put Cara into elimination against Tori. That set up what could’ve been an epic elimination battle between two beast competitors.
At night, the nine remaining competitors in the game traveled by boat out to a large ship sitting in the water. TJ called it the Sinister and said the women’s elimination would occur in the water.
However, the two women didn’t go head to head in anything physical. Instead, it was a competition to see who could tread water for longer under challenging circumstances.
Among those circumstances was the length of the event, along with other conditions such as snakes swimming nearby and small fish biting at the women. TJ also added other requirements, such as raising both arms or elbows above the water.
Based on remarks during the episode, the elimination continued for a long time. Ultimately, Tori outlasted Cara in the water, securing a spot in another final and sending her new friend home.
It was a win by Tori against her former foe, as viewers previously saw her and Cara butt heads on War of the Worlds 2 and then again at The Challenge Season 39 reunion.
Fans called out Season 40 elimination as ‘absolute joke’
Fans of The Challenge weren’t happy for several reasons, including the type of event the two competitors battled in and claims that someone else should’ve been in the elimination.
“Two of the best women challengers ever, and this is the elimination? What an absolute joke. What about balls in, hall brawl, anything physical!!!?” a commenter wrote.
“Hall brawl or something… they tread water ‘against’ each other,” another commented.
“This elimination is a no for me. Not just because I can’t do it, it’s lame,” another individual wrote.
Some commenters called out the daily challenge results, suggesting things were off.
“Jenny should’ve been in there — ya’ll need to playback that challenge cause wtf,” a commenter said.
Monsters and Critics reported that Jordan showed a screencap suggesting Jenny hadn’t assembled her puzzle correctly during the daily challenge. However, she was still announced as the women’s winner and marked safe from that final elimination.
The Challenge: Battle of the Eras airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on MTV.
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