S11.E12: Cincinnati City Finals

[VartanFan]

Quote

I am surprised they are giving away how it ends already, but I think I’m even more excited to watch now. My money’s on Drew! 

Please not Gil, please not Gil, please not Gil.

And because I'm being petty - can this now mean we don't even have to hear about Kacy anymore?  AND can Ethan Swanson now wash his hair?   

Also - if they're going to do a 'blind grab' obstacle or portion of an obstacle in one city, I think it needs to happen in ALL cities for that year.  

[eel21788]

3 hours ago, TimothyQ said:

Have we ever had a 4 episode national finals before? Either we’re going to have a lot of people getting to stage 3 or they’re planning lots of background sob-story videos. Hopefully the former. I’d hate for the finals to be bloated.

I'm just hoping for fewer WWWA runs in Stage 1.

[Taeolas]

In previous years, they would have had 15*6 or 90 ninjas competing. 

This year they would have had 96 ninjas, counting the 6 safety passes. But 4 women were also in the Top 12, so there are actually only 92 ninjas competing (I may be off slightly). That shouldn't warrant a 4th episode, unless they're bringing in some wild cards as well. Hopefully this means a bunch of ninjas make it to the second and third stages; I'd hate to have 2.5 eps of Stage 1 and 1.5 eps of Stages 2,3 and maybe 4. 

[AZChristian]

2 hours ago, VartanFan said:

And because I'm being petty - can this now mean we don't even have to hear about Kacy anymore? 

And did I actually NOT hear her name when Brent S was running the course?  You  mean there's something he's known for other than being Kacy's EX boyfriend?  

[Peter1]

I start by saying I LOVE American Ninja Warrior.  The positivity the show exudes and the sportsmanship between the competitors make it a very unique sporting competition between truly elite athletes.  It pains me to bring any kind of negativity into the equation.  But there was something about the other night’s show, the Cincinnati City Finals, that made me uneasy.  Flat out, the course was too easy.  And I was left to wonder if the course was made easy on purpose.  It’s the first time since I began watching ANW that I questioned the integrity of the show.  Absolutely no disrespect to the competitors, they ran the course that was put in front of them and many have already established themselves as great ninjas.

Although there have been the usual adrenaline-filled and inspirational moments that we all have come to love, this season has been a little tough – lots of shocking eliminations and courses going unfinished.  The blind grab obstacles are eliminating the best and it does kind of seem to be more a matter of luck than skill to overcome them.  The damp Mega Wall in Baltimore was also a bummer.  But these things speak to the difficulty of the obstacles, the conditions and the courses as a whole.  Impossible looking obstacles and challenges to the athletes are something Ninja fans have come to embrace.  The greater the challenge, the greater the reward fans (and I assume athletes) feel when the challenge is overcome.

Let’s examine some statistics from Cincinnati:

-       Seven finishers - this is very high for a city finals course, especially when the only legit superstar competing was Flex Labreck.

-       Two women finishers in one night - only one woman had finished a city finals course in ten seasons, so two in one night is a major red flag.

-       Of the seven finishers only Ethan Swanson and Chris DiGangi had ever completed a city finals course before, Digangi doing so way back in season four.

Is it possible that all of these ninjas just happened to have the best runs of their careers all in the same night?

My fear is that some television executive at NBC, after seeing how few finishers there have been this year, decided it would be a good idea to make the Cincinnati course easier so there would be more.  This would kind of be like the commissioner of baseball getting frustrated at the lack of home runs during a season and deciding to move the outfield fences in 100 feet.  Sure, it would be exciting to see all those home runs but should fans really consider them to be legitimate homers?

The only reason I bring this up in a public forum is because I never want to see this type of thing happen again.  The courses are supposed to be near impossible, but the athletes keep improving and figuring them out.  These courses should always be one step ahead of the competitors, that is the way it has always been, all the way back to the Japan days.

Please NBC, do not start making the courses easier because you think this will give you higher ratings.  Just the opposite will happen when people no longer feel the competition is legitimate.

[VartanFan]

I don't necessarily think this was a setup (regarding the success in this finals course), but as I said above, I think if one course is going to have a blind catch obstacle, they should ALL have one.  Also, I think there should be the same amount of totally new versus 'known' obstacles.  For example, the 9th obstacle in Cincinnati has been seen before....compare that to northwest passage...But it's still hard as hell but we know how these 'professional' ninjas immediately build and practice on new stuff.  

[Nonja]

5 hours ago, VartanFan said:

I think if one course is going to have a blind catch obstacle, they should ALL have one.

I agree, but I dont think they should have even had that one. It was just too hard if none of our top people could get past it. Also (to my knowledge) they have never had to defend an obstacle before by showing a tester completing it just to prove it CAN be done. I read somewhere that the testers are only focused on the one assigned obstacle as opposed to doing the entire course in succession, so in my opinion it was just unfair.  

I've always believed that all qualifying courses should be identical, and all city finals should have very little variation in difficulty level per obstacle if they are determined to change it up. 

[questionfear]

11 hours ago, Nonja said:

I agree, but I dont think they should have even had that one. It was just too hard if none of our top people could get past it. Also (to my knowledge) they have never had to defend an obstacle before by showing a tester completing it just to prove it CAN be done. I read somewhere that the testers are only focused on the one assigned obstacle as opposed to doing the entire course in succession, so in my opinion it was just unfair.  

I've always believed that all qualifying courses should be identical, and all city finals should have very little variation in difficulty level per obstacle if they are determined to change it up. 

Consistency wise that would make sense but it would be boring for the audience to see the same thing every week. 

Here's an idea: offer official "ANW" branding as a license for gyms. In exchange, the official "ANW" gyms will receive some sort of sneak peek or hinting on how the various courses will be constructed. That way someone training for Seattle will know "work on hanging obstacles that require you to move the grips", while someone training for Cincy would know "work on grip-intensive jumps", and someone for Baltimore would know "work on twisting blind catches".

It doesn't have to be the exact obstacles, but that way anyone with access to an "ANW" gym would have the opportunity to test skills that may come up on the course. We all know that people are training like crazy, that they're working skills as the obstacles appear, but then you have a better chance of someone coming in and nailing a blind catch because while they haven't tested the mechanics of that obstacle, they know the general skill. 

[Conotocarious]

I guess I don’t get the big deal. No one gets any money for beating a City Final. It’s not like if you don’t finish the course you can’t go to Vegas. It sucks for the competitors but they’ll still all end up in Vegas where they will be running the same course and have the same chance at the money.

[Ilovepie]

On 8/20/2019 at 3:47 PM, Chaos Theory said:

There was that year Jessie Graff was the first person to get passed The Wedge and ended up coming in 2nd place because of it.  

Yeah, I'm going to say that the only two that have a shot are Jessie Graff and Alyssa Beird because both have completed stage one in Vegas which is timed. They are the only two women (so far) that have the speed to finish at the top, assuming they hit a buzzer......

I got kind of teary with Alyssa Beird when Michelle hit that buzzer. Flex hitting it too felt eerily reminiscent of both Geoff and Isaac hitting the stage 4 buzzer. I am just so happy all of Kacy's accomplishments have been acheived by another woman. While she will always be the first, at least she's not the only. Still, it was very gracious of her to send congrats........

Even though I was frustrated that nobody finished the last couple episodes, is it weird that I was strangely annoyed that too many were finishing this time? I think it's because it just doesn't seem fair, especially for Jessie G. and Alyssa who I think also could have crushed this course.......

[Rickster]

1 hour ago, Conotocarious said:

I guess I don’t get the big deal. No one gets any money for beating a City Final. It’s not like if you don’t finish the course you can’t go to Vegas. It sucks for the competitors but they’ll still all end up in Vegas where they will be running the same course and have the same chance at the money.

But the top finishers in the City Final do get money, and there’s the Safety Pass in play. The earlier in the run there’s an impossible obstacle, you can’t be sure the order of finish at that spot would be the same if they had a chance to complete the course.

[realdancemom]

22 hours ago, Rickster said:

But the top finishers in the City Final do get money, and there’s the Safety Pass in play. The earlier in the run there’s an impossible obstacle, you can’t be sure the order of finish at that spot would be the same if they had a chance to complete the course.

I didn't know that the top finishers in the City Final get money.  I don't remember them say anything like that.  I just know about the cash for the beating the Mega Wall during qualifiers.  Then there is a the speed and safety pass.

[Rickster]

1 hour ago, realdancemom said:

I didn't know that the top finishers in the City Final get money.  I don't remember them say anything like that.  I just know about the cash for the beating the Mega Wall during qualifiers.  Then there is a the speed and safety pass.

In the Baltimore City Finals thread, there’s a link to a Reddit Ask Me Anything done by Alyssa Beird, which is really interesting, and she mentions the prize money without much detail.

[realdancemom]

15 minutes ago, Rickster said:

In the Baltimore City Finals thread, there’s a link to a Reddit Ask Me Anything done by Alyssa Beird, which is really interesting, and she mentions the prize money without much detail.

Thanks for letting me know.

[eel21788]

On ‎8‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 12:25 PM, Peter1 said:

 Two women finishers in one night - only one woman had finished a city finals course in ten seasons, so two in one night is a major red flag.

Those two women are also both gym owners which does give them an advantage. At some point they may need to separate the competitors into professionals versus hobby athletes.

[eel21788]

On ‎8‎/‎19‎/‎2019 at 8:09 PM, ams1001 said:

I couldn't stop looking at Jeri D'Aurelio's sister's baby every time they showed her family. A.) Adorable. B.) Appeared to sleep through the whole thing. Even with ears covered...how?!

What was the point of her father banging on a drum during her entire run? 

[ams1001]

44 minutes ago, eel21788 said:

What was the point of her father banging on a drum during her entire run? 

He always does that and I don't remember why. I assume they've explained it at some point...

[Conotocarious]

On 8/22/2019 at 6:04 PM, Rickster said:

But the top finishers in the City Final do get money, and there’s the Safety Pass in play. The earlier in the run there’s an impossible obstacle, you can’t be sure the order of finish at that spot would be the same if they had a chance to complete the course.

But you don’t need to complete the course to get the money, do you? And the safety pass either. You only need to be a top finisher. So if the course is hard and everyone falls, you still are likely to end up in the same position as if it were easier...because if it were easier a whole lot of people would be completing it.

As far as I can see, the only thing you could be robbed of is getting the “first woman to complete a city finals course” title. 

[RedbirdNelly]

I love watching this show while I run on my treadmill (although  have to be careful--sometimes I catch myself "lean-Englishing" my support for whoever is running and start to lose my balance--even though I know I'm watching a recording of a pre-recorded event).

I was glad we were back to a course that could be completed. The previous 2 episodes were awful.

I wish cat guy had made it through.

I don't think they should ever split up pros/gym owners from the hobby athletes. It's what makes it especially exciting in my opinion when some rookie does amazing.

[QuantumMechanic]

I really want them to treat the 8th and 9th obstacles of city finals courses as (at least!) two sub-obstacles each for purposes of figuring “the farthest the fastest”. (Personally I’d like each individual “grab point” in those obstacles to be treated as a checkpoint but can understand that being considered too complicated for the viewers).

It has always irked me that someone who gets almost to the end of (say) the 8th obstacle and then falls is considered to be behind someone who fell off the obstacle immediately but touched it a couple of seconds sooner.

Really, I’d like any obstacle with obvious internal transition points to have those transition points treated as checkpoints.

Edited September 7, 2019 by QuantumMechanic