S13.E08: Semifinals 3

[Lantern7]

I’m playing catch-up. Just saw Sean Bryan wang himself on the head, got bloodied, and still manage to complete the course. The bleeding wasn’t bad-bad, but the impact look like it friggin’ hurt.

ETA: Oof, Drop Zone took out Dave Campbell. Godfather took two shots to the head. Also, that was WWWA.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Lantern7

[ams1001]

Damn, that Drop Zone thing is dangerous!

So when someone gets bloodied like Sean did and and finishes the course, do they have to do extra sanitizing before the next runner? (Or are they doing that anyway because of covid?)
 

Edit: All the shirt changes these folks go through and no one had a clean shirt Sean could change into?

Edited August 17, 2021 by ams1001

[bybrandy]

1 hour ago, ams1001 said:

Damn, that Drop Zone thing is dangerous!

So when someone gets bloodied like Sean did and and finishes the course, do they have to do extra sanitizing before the next runner? (Or are they doing that anyway because of covid?)
 

Edit: All the shirt changes these folks go through and no one had a clean shirt Sean could change into?

I am positive there were plenty of clean shirts for Sean to change into but then they wouldn't be able to show him bloody all night.

 

[mlp]

That Drop Zone obstacle is dangerous.  I hope they don't bring it back.  I'm glad Sean was able to finish after getting whacked, especially since he had to drop out when he hurt his shoulder last year - or maybe it was two years ago.  

Vance Walker was impressive on ANW Junior and he's more so now.  His parents are probably overwhelmed with emotion when they see their child who started life with a CP diagnosis and leg braces do the things he can do now.  I'm looking forward to seeing him compete in Las Vegas.

[PhD-Purgatory15]

If it wasn't the reality before, I think tonight officially hammers home the idea that the teens have broken the show lol.

If next week is similar to the first 3 semifinals, then teens will end up being something like 1 out of every 3 male competitors in the Vegas Finals. That's just nuts. And honestly (and completely unspoiled) if I had to take a guess right now who I thought might win the whole thing this year, I'd say the two kids who ran up the power tower in tonight's episode have to be 2 of the 8 or 10 favorite favorites. I'd also throw that Jay "Lache", and the Kaden kid from last week's episode in that group of 8 or 10 too (along with a few of the Vet hold outs like Adam Rayl, Daniel Gill, Joe Moravsky, & maybe RJ Roman on a given day)..

[SophiaD]

Congratulations to both of the teens who had great runs on the Power Tower.  It was great to see Najee again.  I wish he was able to compete this season.

And, yes, please, get rid of the Drop Zone!  In this case, I was happy that the teens made it, because we didn't have to see Sean try to run the Power Tower and maybe hit his head again.  It was also nice to hear all of the athletes supporting each other and I heard a few witty puns this evening - nice job, Matt and Akbar.  However, the changes still aren't doing it for me.

I've been watching it to see how my favorites are doing and also to see women making progress.  This new format means that a lot of the athletes I've been following are receiving the WWWA or just aren't there.  With all of the new, fit young guys, we're pretty much guaranteed to see mostly guys having a chance to win the competition and the Power Tower plays to their strengths - speed and upper body strength.  I do like some of the younger women who are amazing athletes, but, overall, the show is not as interesting for me now.  

[Iguana]

It’s one thing to have an obstacle that seriously challenges the Ninjas, it’s quite another thing to have an obstacle that seriously injures them. Drop Zone should never be used again. 

Edited August 17, 2021 by Iguana

[eel21788]

14 hours ago, mlp said:

Vance Walker was impressive on ANW Junior and he's more so now.  His parents are probably overwhelmed with emotion when they see their child who started life with a CP diagnosis and leg braces do the things he can do now.  I'm looking forward to seeing him compete in Las Vegas.

So, why aren't we hearing about the first person with cerebral palsy to get up the warped wall? That's a much bigger accomplishment than the first mom!

[enoughcats]

The women have not had a good season.  When the top three from a semifinal includes a contestant who made it less than half the way through, it's not a good thing at all. 

Just maybe they shouldn't have played up that Megan won the women's competition because they knew when they edited this that (as in so many previous years) she didn't make it to the end of the course.

Let's hope they get a lot of young male desired demographic viewers to make up for the loss of olde timers who are losing interest.

[SophiaD]

2 hours ago, enoughcats said:

The women have not had a good season.  When the top three from a semifinal includes a contestant who made it less than half the way through, it's not a good thing at all. 

I hope Flex has a good run.  With Jessie Graf hurt and out for the season and Allyssa Beird out early, she's really the only one left who has had success at the finals.  Sigh. 

[Taeolas]

I suspect Sean actually ran a lot later in the course, but completing the course while bloodied promoted him to the first spot. I was surprised they were opening with such a high profile Ninja, until he had his accident, then it made sense. As they say in the News industry, "Blood Leads."

 

And yes, they likely had to take a long break to fully sterilize the course after his run. The water is probably chlorinated and was fine (especially since it would get drips at most) but all the surfaces would need to be disinfected and dried off. 

 

As for changing his shirt, I don't think Ninjas are allowed to take anything from off the course during their run. They can throw things off the course (which gives us all those shirtless shots) but grabbing something from off the course would probably be a DQ. Sean probably figured keeping the shirt on to give him something to wipe his face with was better than taking it off and going bare chested and not being able to clear his eyes as easily. 

 

Sean did have a towel at the end, but they usually have a towel before the warped wall and the tower climb to let the Ninja's dry off their shoes and hands before the obstacles that need a lot of friction. 

 

As for the obstacle itself, it didn't seem that dangerous of an obstacle, and most of the ninjas got through it without a problem. (And if you assume Sean actually ran later, they got through it without knowing of Sean's accident). It's a legit challenge, combining grip strength, being able to move an obstacle around, and the sudden drop we see in other obstacles. If it comes back, the loop bar might be removed, replaced with another vertical bar, or maybe padded more with clearer hand grips (a motorcycle handlebars type grip might be better, to give a gap for the head to go through if momentum takes it the wrong way)

 

On another note, maybe I wasn't paying as close attention, but Padlock didn't seem to be as difficult as it was last week. Maybe the Ninjas were able to watch last week's run and take notes? 

[ams1001]

9 minutes ago, Taeolas said:

As for changing his shirt, I don't think Ninjas are allowed to take anything from off the course during their run. They can throw things off the course (which gives us all those shirtless shots) but grabbing something from off the course would probably be a DQ. Sean probably figured keeping the shirt on to give him something to wipe his face with was better than taking it off and going bare chested and not being able to clear his eyes as easily. 

 

I was referring to when they showed him later, watching someone else from the sidelines. He still had his blood-stained shirt on. (But bybrandy is probably right; it's more drama if he's shown with the spots on his shirt.)

[realdancemom]

This season has become a passing of the guard type season.  There was a little bit of that when the age limit dropped to 19 when the Kid came along and they mentioned Daniel Gil training him.  But it's really noticeable now.  It is nice that the kids are mentioning their coaches/trainers like the one that was trained by Najee.  I'm hoping a veteran wins the million though.  I'm rooting for Joe, Sean, or Adam.

[Rickster]

48 minutes ago, realdancemom said:

This season has become a passing of the guard type season.  There was a little bit of that when the age limit dropped to 19 when the Kid came along and they mentioned Daniel Gil training him.  But it's really noticeable now.  It is nice that the kids are mentioning their coaches/trainers like the one that was trained by Najee.  I'm hoping a veteran wins the million though.  I'm rooting for Joe, Sean, or Adam.

I can see where older ninjas are aging out, but I don’t think the answer is replacing them with 16 year olds. I wonder if its due to covid eliminating the walk-ons and regional competitions that made them open it up to their known quantitities of ninja jrs. I’d rather see new competitors in their 20’s.

I also wonder whether adolescence is going to turn out to be the sweet spot, combining  strength, speed and flexibility before competitors mature and put on more weight, to do well on ninja courses and we’ll see it dominated by teens in the future.

[Dottie D]

I used to be an avid watcher of So You Think You Can Dance.  Then one summer they decided to have kids participate.  They lost me immediately with that decision.  Although I think the kids version ended up being one season, I never tuned in to that show after that.  I feel the same way about American Ninja Warrior.  I found myself checking out more than in this past season. Plus the human interest stories are mostly a distraction and another reason why I've been tuning out.

[Hanahope]

On 8/19/2021 at 3:04 PM, Rickster said:

I can see where older ninjas are aging out, but I don’t think the answer is replacing them with 16 year olds. I wonder if its due to covid eliminating the walk-ons and regional competitions that made them open it up to their known quantitities of ninja jrs. I’d rather see new competitors in their 20’s.

I also wonder whether adolescence is going to turn out to be the sweet spot, combining  strength, speed and flexibility before competitors mature and put on more weight, to do well on ninja courses and we’ll see it dominated by teens in the future.

That was my thought.  Couldn’t do walk ons due to Covid, so they filled the ranks with ninja jr and other teens sponsored by vets.

[VartanFan]

What I couldn’t believe about Drop Zone was that it wasn’t sufficiently tested to reveal that contestant were going to repeatedly get hit in the head.  Or that foam or something wasn’t put on the bar part.  

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - I just don’t like the lowered age limits.  For the most part, it’s like…ho, hum, geometry was hard for me in school this year.  My family is so rich that they built me my own special ninja gym with my pool AND all these older dudes come hang out there.  It’s weird. 

 

[Ilovepie]

On 8/20/2021 at 12:22 PM, Dottie D said:

I used to be an avid watcher of So You Think You Can Dance.  Then one summer they decided to have kids participate.  They lost me immediately with that decision.  Although I think the kids version ended up being one season, I never tuned in to that show after that.  I feel the same way about American Ninja Warrior.  I found myself checking out more than in this past season. Plus the human interest stories are mostly a distraction and another reason why I've been tuning out.

I felt exactly the same about SYTYCD. It also happened when American Idol lowered the age to 15. And now the same about this show. For some reason, adding teens is the beginning of the end of shows for me. This was my summer favorite. Now I find myself dreading it when it shows up in my queue. It's the last thing we pick instead of the first. I have hated these Covid seasons. I miss the energy and excitement of actual crowds. I love seeing the people I normally root for, and it's pissing me off seeing them shoved aside for these kids. I have started fast forwarding all of them, like, yeah yeah, they're great and I'm sure they'll all hit a buzzer. Zzzz......... If there was one or two I wouldn't care, but they have taken over the whole show. I say no thanks - I wish they would get off my lawn Ninja Show! ;-p

That Drop Zone needs to be retired ASAP. How did this thing make it onto the show??? They should have named it the Head Splitter......

I still love Adam Rayl.

[Vermicious Knid]

Did they add the kids to get more participants because there aren't any walkons?

I thought it was unfair to put a stage 3 obstacle in the semis but like 12 people finished, so I guess not. Also, yay Flex. I'd love to see everything come down to her and Meghan but probably not going to happen.

[TiredMe]

I’m so completely losing interest in this show because it’s all teens. At least Sean and Megan got through. 

[Taeolas]

I don't have an issue with all the teens. Normally I avoid Teen/Kid versions of shows like the plague (I'm NOT looking at you, MasterChef JR, Chopped Jr, etc.... ). But here, I don't mind it because it's still people running the same obstacles, so the age is (somewhat) irrelevant other than for the backstory crap I FF through anyways. 

This year we have a LOT of new young blood in the Ninja pool, which is to be expected considering the change in age brackets AND COVID restrictions that prevented the separate city courses and walkon capabilities. Hopefully next year we can go back to the city courses with the walkons for the random factor, even if the age range stays the same. Give it a season or two and this young surge will have been worked through. Tomorrow, the stronger Ninjas of these young folks will be the Flips and Jesses of today and we won't really bat an eye about their ages (or the age of those coming in). The fact that last year's truncated season was basically ANW All Stars due to the invite-only nature of the season doesn't help either. We're getting at least 2 years worth of new blood dumped in all at once as well. 

 

Anyways, I'll keep watching (and FF'ing through the chaff) for as long as its on and entertaining. :) 

[realdancemom]

10 hours ago, Taeolas said:

I don't have an issue with all the teens. Normally I avoid Teen/Kid versions of shows like the plague (I'm NOT looking at you, MasterChef JR, Chopped Jr, etc.... ). But here, I don't mind it because it's still people running the same obstacles, so the age is (somewhat) irrelevant other than for the backstory crap I FF through anyways. 

This year we have a LOT of new young blood in the Ninja pool, which is to be expected considering the change in age brackets AND COVID restrictions that prevented the separate city courses and walkon capabilities. Hopefully next year we can go back to the city courses with the walkons for the random factor, even if the age range stays the same. Give it a season or two and this young surge will have been worked through. Tomorrow, the stronger Ninjas of these young folks will be the Flips and Jesses of today and we won't really bat an eye about their ages (or the age of those coming in). The fact that last year's truncated season was basically ANW All Stars due to the invite-only nature of the season doesn't help either. We're getting at least 2 years worth of new blood dumped in all at once as well. 

 

Anyways, I'll keep watching (and FF'ing through the chaff) for as long as its on and entertaining. :) 

I don't mind the teens for the same reason.  They're doing the same obstacles and who advances is not subjective.  It's based on time and how far you go.  This is different than shows like SYTYCD Jr. or singing shows that lower ages, because in those situations, I think it helps when you're older.  Contestants might get dances or songs that are really made for adults and the kids have no clue what they're really dancing/singing to.  So they either have a ridiculous smile or put on their fake angsty face.  Then, you have people that might vote for kids because their cute and good for their age even though they're not as technically good as the adults.

I would rather see these teens than the two Tik-Tok ones that failed on the first or second course.