‘The Challenge’ Producers Host Video Call With Derrick and Horacio to Reveal Raw Footage of Controversial Elimination

As a seasoned connoisseur of reality TV, I’ve seen my fair share of dramas unfold both on and off screen. The saga between Derrick Kosinski and Horacio Gutiérrez Jr. on “The Challenge” has certainly been one for the books.


“The Challenge” may not be airing a new episode this week but the drama has carried over.

On September 4th, during the show “Battle of the Eras,” Derrick Kosinski and Horacio Gutiérrez Jr. competed against each other in a sandy elimination round. The results were unclear for everyone involved, but eventually, it was announced by host TJ Lavin that Derrick had won the contest. This competition involved placing 40 pegs into a wall as part of an endurance test.

Following the broadcast, Horacio stated in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that he correctly positioned all his pegs onto the board, whereas Derrick did not. Moreover, he suggested that the production team assisted Derrick by retrieving fallen pegs and repositioning them. Evidence did emerge showing an empty hole on Derrick’s board, as two pegs were inserted into one. Additionally, Horacio mentioned that his ball got stuck during play, causing him to lag behind.

It’s been confirmed that EbMaster had a Zoom meeting with Derrick and Horacio on September 10th, during which producers presented them with unedited footage displaying the rules explained to the contestants and the entire competition.

Derrick mentioned during the ‘Challenge Mania’ podcast on Wednesday that the top executives at Bunim/Murray Productions and MTV decided to do something unprecedented in their 40 seasons, which was to share footage and rules about an event, all due to a wave of negative feedback. This was according to Derrick.

Horacio became a part of the podcast, sharing that the producer had stated, “This might be the only time we do this, but today we’re going to share the unedited footage with you, along with some guidelines.” The video presented approximately five minutes worth of rules being explained to the contestants, including an explanation about the peg falling error.

Horacio admitted, ‘Once a peg is inserted, it’s considered, and unfortunately, we overlooked this.’ Derrick concurred, ‘They did mention, “If pegs slide down the wall – they will slide down the wall – let them slide.” That was my main understanding.’

This action, where production team members are retrieving pegs Derrick has inserted into the wall and then replacing them, isn’t beneficial to him. Instead, it appears that once he places a peg, it is already accounted for, regardless of whether it is subsequently moved or not.

During the Zoom meeting, they additionally played the uncensored video of the elimination, which lasted approximately five minutes. Nine distinct camera perspectives were utilized – four focusing on Derrick, four on Horacio, and one on TJ. As he noted, “All possible camera angles were displayed, it was entirely unedited.

The end result was that Derrick emerged victorious by only a few seconds. According to Horacio, retrieving my own pegs took approximately four seconds. The time stopped when I came to a halt while trying to stop the ball, which took between seven and eight seconds. This meant that Derrick won by less than a second, making it one of the closest eliminations they had ever seen.

“The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras” airs on Wednesdays on MTV at 8 p.m. ET.

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2024-09-12 01:46