Survivor star Tyson Apostol is among the featured competitors in CBS’ show, The Challenge: USA, which also includes players from Big Brother, Amazing Race, and Love Island.
The show is a spinoff of MTV’s The Challenge, which puts different reality television stars against one another in a game of wits, strategy, political and social moves, and of course, intense physical competition.
Throughout the first several episodes of CBS’ version, Tyson established himself as a favorite to win the spinoff show, winning several daily challenges and qualifying for the final early.
He also developed strong allies in the game to keep himself safe from elimination if he didn’t win future daily events.
Even when it looked like he was in jeopardy at times, he somehow managed to avoid the wrath of rival players or those who might want him out of the game.
As a winner of his show Survivor, he recently gave his opinion on whether his former CBS show or his current one was the harder of the two competitions.
Tyson comments if Survivor or The Challenge was harder
Each week, The Challenge: USA’s Tyson gives his insight into the spinoff show’s episode on a podcast he hosts alongside Amelia Wedemeyer for The Ringer on Spotify.
During his recent podcast, Tyson said he was watching the latest episode of The Challenge: USA with his daughter when she asked him which he thought was harder to play, Survivor or The Challenge.
Tyson said that was tough for him to answer because he thought Survivor was “much harder,” but he mentioned that he enjoyed the overall premise of the competition show.
“I think Survivor is much harder. But I enjoy it because I love the ocean and the beach and I love, like coconuts and fending for yourself a little bit,” he shared.
“So I love that aspect of it. So I take a lot of pleasure there versus The Challenge. There’s not that aspect to it,” he said, adding, “I think that Survivor is harder, but I love doing it more.”
Funny enough, he also shared that his daughter turned to him and said she would “rather do The Challenge” than the show where her father rose to reality TV fame.
The Challenge: USA hasn’t been quite like MTV’s show
Diehard fans of the show may quickly point out that Tyson is on a spinoff of The Challenge rather than the main show on MTV. Many viewers have also noticed the lack of physical head-to-head daily events, and no physical one-on-one elimination events, until the most recent episodes.
In Episode 8, viewers saw the first head-to-head banger of elimination as the classic Hall Brawl made its debut on the spinoff with two of the men competing in the event.
Episode 10 brought Balls In, with competitors trying to score a colored ball into a basket in the middle of a ring in The Arena. The opposing player was on defense, trying to prevent their opponent from scoring and knock the ball out of the ring.
Based on preview footage for the upcoming grand finale of The Challenge: USA, a Pole Wrestle also appears to be on the way.
However, these physical elimination events didn’t occur until the season’s tail end. Most of the show’s eliminations featured competitors having to complete a task or series of tasks before their opponent(s) could.
Most daily challenges also featured competitors apart from one another in terms of making physical contact. Many events involved swimming in the water and solving math problems or word puzzles.
Episode 11 will bring TJ Lavin’s final for The Challenge: USA competitors, and it’s currently unknown if Tyson breezes through that to prove how much easier it is. It’s hard to deny that the CBS spinoff has looked easier than MTV’s main version of The Challenge.
However, fans and cast members can probably make a strong argument against Tyson if he believes Survivor is harder than MTV’s The Challenge. Many former winners will likely contend it was no easy feat to win a Challenge season.
The Challenge: USA airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on CBS.
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