S09.E16: USA vs. the World (2018)

[Lantern7]

Poked through the schedule, and I realized this was on tonight. Spread the word!

Quote

Top athletes from around the globe come together for this intense competition. Four teams from North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia will battle on the tough four-stage national finals course featured in "American Ninja Warrior." Contestants compete in a head-to-head format that pits members from each team against one another.

Edited March 11, 2018 by Lantern7

[jhlipton]

2 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

Poked through the schedule, and I realized this was on tonight. Spread the word!

Thanks for the heads up!

[slf]

Joe Moravsky is only 28? Honestly he looks a full decade older. I might've cackled gleefully when he fell.

[srpturtle80]

This was very entertaining. Glad Sean Bryan was ok after that fall, that was hard to watch! He still made a valiant effort on the robe climb, but McColl is a beast! 

[Lantern7]

Some night. New rules, same results: Latin America is still green (do they have Ninja shows?), and Asia continues to not come big. Are ANW and Sasuke close in terms of competitiveness these days? Is is an apple/orange thing? We had Japan returning with two guys, along with newbies from Indonesia and Vietnam . . . and they manage three points. Dang.

I think that the U.S. team had a better night overall, with Europe sweating elimination in Stage Two. Then the scores got wiped, both Europe and U.S. got three points, and Sean McColl wins the Battle of the Seans, beating Sean "Papal Ninja" Bryan by 0.86 seconds. Good efforts all around, especially from Bryan, who failed to clear Flying Wedge in the most painful way imaginable.

1 hour ago, slf said:

Joe Moravsky is only 28? Honestly he looks a full decade older. I might've cackled gleefully when he fell.

Maybe the weatherman life is as draining as the U.S. presidency? And I just realized why I shouldn't like Joe (most of it political views), but he doesn't rub me the wrong way that hard. To be honest, none of the ninjas do. Not like we got a "Johnny Bananas" motherfucker milking the teat extra hard and playing the role of bad boy.

ANW10 starts on May 30! If there's a celebirty/charity edition, we might get it on the 23rd. I'm not sure if it'll live up to last year. Stephen Amell cleared the Salmon Ladder in a semi-competitive environment, and that's all fans of Arrow (like myself) wanted to see.

[Fukui San]

14 minutes ago, Lantern7 said:

Some night. New rules, same results: Latin America is still green (do they have Ninja shows?), and Asia continues to not come big. Are ANW and Sasuke close in terms of competitiveness these days? Is is an apple/orange thing?

Sasuke is as it always was. An occasional one time, one day tournament with half the field ceded to celebrities and novelty acts. The tourney is the equivalent of the Vegas finals for ANW without the qualifying rounds and spinoffs that give the US ninjas many more reps on live courses and obstacles.

IMO, the US should be assumed to have a stronger baseline team as there's a larger talent pool due to sheer population, and the US franchise is a meritocracy which develops talent by giving competitors many more chances than an equivalent Japanese Ninja. It's almost not fair to compare them. I also think the US finals course has skyrocketed in difficulty and leapfrogged the Japanese course.

I saw video of David Campbell achieving total victory in 2016 in the Vietnamese version of Sasuke. It was so easy relative to the US and Japanese versions. The Stage 3 signature obstacle was the Cliffhanger Version 1.0 without all the crazy climbs, ledges, and jumps that were added. Still an accomplishment, but not the equivalent of beating even the Japanese course.

Sasuke seems to be back to 2/year. It was 1/year at best for a while as it held on by a thread for years due to low ratings.

[mlp]

Good competition.  The 3 hours went by quickly.  I felt sorry for the Asians who lost face - again.  I used to think that the problem is that they're all so short but they excel in their own countries and we've seen short Americans do extremely well.  I don't understand it.

I've always liked Joe but he seemed a bit smug tonight.  Maybe he has always been and I never noticed.  

I'm glad Sean  Bryan wasn't injured.  I felt for his mother who was standing there horrified and unable to go to him or do anything except worry.

Sean McColl is very good.  He earned his win.

I was typing while the previous post was added.  I didn't realize that some of the Asian courses are less difficult.  That probably answers my questions.

Edited March 12, 2018 by mlp

[saber5055]

It was great to have ANW back, and I like the vs. The World competitions and learning about competitors from other countries. The Latin American guys were at a disadvantage, never having been on a ninja course before. It's like the first years of ANW where no one could make it up the warped wall. So yeah, the American team was at an advantage since they'd been on these obstacles before. Although that final course was so impossible, I don't know how anyone except some Marvel superhero could finish it.

I wonder how they picked the American team. It was fun to see Jessie and Capt. NBC in the audience. I might have missed others.

I wish they would do more of these vs. competitions with different team members. One year, the three announcers picked teams and competed against each other -- that was great fun to watch.

[ClareWalks]

That rope climb was FAST. Holy hell. Speaking of "holy," I am tired of the Papal Ninja schtick. He isn't papal. He isn't a priest. He is basically an IT guy for a church. I wish Drew Dreschel had done better on stage 3, I love him. One of the dudes on Team Latin America looked a lot like Joe Mangianello. That's all I've got.

[Rickster]

I was surprised that they didn’t use Najee on Stage 4 given the injury.

It was also amusing to see obviously American spectators given signs for the other teams to wave and cheer for.

[Pepperclove]

I'm pretty sure Sean McColl would win every year if they let him compete in the U.S. series. I wanted to see him do Stage 3, but it was smart of Team Europe to rest him for Stage 4, especially since they knew they were almost certain to advance after the first runs on Stage 3.

[healthnut]

They should let some of team Europe, Latin America, and Asia compete on the regular show. Some Americans gets to run Sasuke or other comps. That would level the playing field. It’s not fair the Americans get to run the course beforehand, that’s a huge advantage. 

This was an excellent example of how to do intro videos without it sucking the life out of the show. I wish they do that on the regular show instead of the long drawn out stories.

[Guest]

Great show.  So was this run and taped right after last year's regular season?  

[Chyna]

11 hours ago, Winston9-DT3 said:

Great show.  So was this run and taped right after last year's regular season?  

It seems like that might have been the case -- or perhaps right before the taping of the upcoming season? (I don't know when they tape.) But Jamie Rahn, Alyssa Beard, and Jessie Graff were all wearing the type of clothes they usually compete in (Jessie had an ANW tank top over hers) so I thought their own competition might have been right around the same time.

[Lantern7]

21 minutes ago, Chyna said:

It seems like that might have been the case -- or perhaps right before the taping of the upcoming season? (I don't know when they tape.) But Jamie Rahn, Alyssa Beard, and Jessie Graff were all wearing the type of clothes they usually compete in (Jessie had an ANW tank top over hers) so I thought their own competition might have been right around the same time.

Maybe an all-stars competition? If we see that and it's set during the day, then we'd know. With the revised rosters, only four ninjas would have been saving themselves for the main competition.

[Guest]

I just googled around and got confirmation it was taped after the 2017 finals, last June.  It was super hot, Stabile said 118 and that it didn't cool down much at night.  

I figured the little scenes showing the teams deciding who was going to run stage 4 were fake but I wondered why Moravsky was using "we're wet" as reasons he and Drew couldn't do the rope climb.  It seems like it'd help, in the heat.  Obviously, the fact they'd run more recently would matter.

[frogzapper]

On 3/11/2018 at 8:12 PM, Lantern7 said:

On 3/11/2018 at 7:01 PM, slf said:

Joe Moravsky is only 28? Honestly he looks a full decade older. I might've cackled gleefully when he fell.

Maybe the weatherman life is as draining as the U.S. presidency? And I just realized why I shouldn't like Joe (most of it political views), but he doesn't rub me the wrong way

I'm not familiar with his political views... He does look older than 28 though!

On 3/11/2018 at 8:54 PM, mlp said:

I've always liked Joe but he seemed a bit smug tonight.  Maybe he has always been and I never noticed.  

I wondered if maybe the Ninja life is starting to wear on him? In his post-run interview with Christine he mentioned something about finding it harder to get motivated at times or something like that. And I think he made one other comment that gave me the impression that maybe he's not as driven about the Ninja stuff anymore. I've always enjoyed watching him run the courses because he looks like such a regular guy (an average Joe, hehe), but he's deceptively fast and usually makes the obstacles look kind of easy.

[jhlipton]

On 3/11/2018 at 8:12 PM, Lantern7 said:

I just realized why I shouldn't like Joe (most of it political views), but he doesn't rub me the wrong way that hard. To be honest, none of the ninjas do. Not like we got a "Johnny Bananas" motherfucker milking the teat extra hard and playing the role of bad boy.

Mostly because Isaac Caldiero has (apparently) moved to Germany.

On 3/12/2018 at 10:50 AM, saber5055 said:

One year, the three announcers picked teams and competed against each other -- that was great fun to watch.

That was fun; kind of patterned on track and field event, but instead of javelin or discus, there was Warped Wall and other obstacles.  The announcer's picks for that event would compete to see who could go higher or further.