Skimming the cast of The Challenge and completely unclear on who the rookies are? Bored and need content to consume? You came to the right place.
Gabby Allen
Gabby was on the third season of Love Island, entering about a week into the season. She quickly coupled up with Marcel Somerville, and lasted to the final, coming in 4th place overall based on the audience vote. They are no longer together. She was on Celebrity Big Brother 22, specifically the UK version of the show. She again was a last place finalist, coming in sixth place.
At 5'2, Gabby is fairly short, but she’s also very athletic. She’s a licensed personal trainer, and has a background as a professional dancer. Though she may not ever be favored in a headbanger elimination, her dexterity and body control should be more than enough for her to leverage to be able to keep up with the cast in dailies and maybe even the final. The only question is if she can even get there. On her rookie season, she probably doesn’t have incredible odds, but if she can prove herself entertaining, she could be brought back and possibly become a winner on a future season. Probably not this one, though.
Strength: C
Swimming: unknown
Dexterity: A+
Endurance: B
Puzzles: unknown
Strategy: unknown
Social: B
Joseph Allen
No relation (as far as I know) to Gabby Allen. Joseph comes to the Challenge from America’s Got Talent, for some reason. He competed on Season 14 as a singer and rapper, and received the Golden Buzzer from Howie Mandel. He was eliminated at the first public vote, in the quarterfinals.
Joseph has a minor motocross background, which is why he has a titanium plate, internal nylon ropes, anchors, and more placed inside his body to hold his bones and ligaments together. Watch for him to be deeply susceptible to injury. However, that background could lend him some advantages on fearlessness, meaning he could do well in things like heights challenges. Another potential upside for him is that as a vocalist, he likely has good breath control and consequentially solid endurance, and his musical background in general will probably help with keeping rhythm, which could be somewhat useful in challenges that involve repetitively. At 5'8 and 150 lbs, he’s not exactly a huge physical force, but he could do better than expect if, and only if, he can build enough social capital to protect himself.
Strength: D-
Swimming: unknown
Dexterity: C+
Endurance: unknown
Puzzles: C
Strategy: unknown
Social: B+
Natalie Anderson
Natalie is a two time Survivor player, with the highest averaging placement of any American Survivor contestant ever, winning on her first try and getting runner-up status on her second. She also competed on the Amazing Race 21 with her twin Nadiya, where they came in fourth place on their first season after winning two legs. They returned for the Amazing Race: All-Stars, finishing in last place.
On Survivor: San Juan del Sur, Natalie and her twin Nadiya both played. All players came with a loved one who started on the opposing tribe. Nadiya was eliminated first, which makes the fact that Natalie made it all the way to the end and won, without a single vote cast against her, all the more impressive. Her legacy in this season has cast a long shadow, and she is most noted for her performance in the endgame, which is largely viewed as one of the best of all time. Her biggest move came at the final 5. She was there with a mother-daughter pair, Baylor and Missy; a major social and physical threat who lacked severely in strategic facilities (Keith), who was also immune; and Jaclyn, who had just lost her boyfriend after getting voted out by Natalie and her alliance. Natalie betrayed her alliance by playing an immunity idol on Jaclyn in an incredibly flashy fashion, garnering her good will with the jury and removing her biggest strategic threat, Baylor, even though Baylor was, until that point, her most important ally. She then went on to win in a 5–2–1 vote.
In Survivor: Winners at War, she had a more polarizing run. After the season, it was revealed she rubbed a few of the other contestants the wrong way. But the biggest knock on her run was the fact that she was voted off first, and then won her way back into the game with an idol before finding another. With 3 hidden immunity idols over the course of her career, she is tied for the most amount of idols found in a career by any woman. She also won the final immunity challenge, which was a dexterity endurance competition, and ended up finishing in second place to who many consider the greatest winner of all time, Tony Vlachos, in a 12–4–0 vote. During the finale, she and Michele Fitzgerald became the only two contestants to reach the Final Tribal Council every time they played.
Natalie is a professional Crossfit trainer, and in incredible shape. At 5'10, Natalie is the tallest rookie female, and she also seems to be coming in as the most physically intimidating rookie besides the Olympian, Lolo Jones. She can also swim impressively. However, unlike Lolo, Natalie is known as a strong strategist, and her puzzle skills are a known entity.
Strength: A
Swimming: A-
Dexterity: A
Endurance: A+
Puzzles: B
Strategy: A+
Social: B-
Amber Borotza
Amber competed on Big Brother 16, and survived a decent amount of time. She quickly ingratiated herself into the power structure, and won three competitions early on. However, she drew the eye of two men early on, one of whom, Caleb, became very aggressive in his obviously unreturned affections, and the other one, Cody, whose affections were returned, backed off so as not to draw his ire. Despite not really doing anything wrong, Amber was evicted unanimously as a result of Caleb and the drama that he brought.
At 5'9, Amber is fairly tall with a toned build. She is an esthetician and model, but she also leads a physically active lifestyle that involves hiking, horseback riding, kayaking, yoga, rock climbing and spelunking. Although she may be physically overshadowed by some of the other female rookies like Natalie and Lolo, she should not be underestimated. She is more than capable of keeping up in this era of competitors as physical specimens.
Strength: B-
Swimming: B-
Dexterity: A-
Endurance: B
Puzzles: B-
Strategy: B
Social: A
Lolo Jones
Lolo is a dual Olympic athlete, and is one of just four American women to compete in both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games. In the Summer, she competed as a hurdler specializing in the 60-meter and 100-meter hurdles, winning three NCAA titles, and currently holding the national record for the 60-meter race with a time of 7.72 seconds. She also consistently won first place in hurdle races of both 60 and 100 meter lengths for at least two years. In the Winter, she was a bobsledder, filling the role of the brakewoman. A brakewoman is the person who stops the sled after it crosses the finish line.
She also competed on Celebrity Big Brother 2, where she came in 3rd place overall. Over the course of the season, she won two Veto competitions, one Head of Household competition, and was nominated only once. She never received any votes against her, and was only ever eliminated by default after Ricky Williams chose to take Tamar Braxton to the end with him over Lolo and Dina Lohan. Ricky then proceeded to lose in the first unanimous jury vote in over a decade. Lolo got into fights with Tom Green, Kato Kaelin, Tamar Braxton, Kandi Burress, and I’m probably missing a few. She may have slapped glasses off of Tamar.
Lolo also competed on The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros, where she, along with Ashley M. went into every female elimination. Both won all of them until they eventually went against each other, where Lolo prevailed. Lolo then decided to give money to Ashley’s charity. This could be a fruitful alliance for the both of them. It should also be noted that Lolo got into several fights over the course of the season, notably with Gus Kenworthy and Lindsey Jacobellis.
Strength: A+
Swimming: unknown
Dexterity: A
Endurance: A-
Puzzles: B+
Strategy: B
Social: D
Mechie Harris
Mechie was a member of 4EY The Future, a music group from the DC area that had a single viral video and for some reason now has a reality TV career of his own. He’s now best known for having a sex tape with Blac Chyna and possibly having been a homewrecker to that relationship. He then went on to appear on to be on Ex on the Beach 3, better known as Marie on the Beach, and made a mild impression, if any. This is a person who fits the reality star mold better on paper than on camera. He’s almost similar to Kaycee, in that their contributions to the entertainment value of their shows resides mostly in how others react to what they do rather than what they do themselves. With a slim build and a frame of only 5'7, though, he does not appear to have Kaycee’s musculature to make up for what he lacks in direct entertainment value.
Strength: D
Swimming: unknown
Dexterity: B
Endurance: unknown
Puzzles: unknown
Strategy: unknown
Social: B-
Liv Jawando
The Challenge’s third contestant from Shipwrecked: Battle of the Islands 2019, Liv Jawando won her season on Sean Lineaker’s team, beating Big T. She got into a massive fight with Big T over whether or not mermaids are real, for some reason. Liv is the one who believed, again, for some reason. Truly an insane argument that lacked any kind of proportionality, it was fairly quickly resolved. She also threw a drink at someone. Her relationship with Big T at this point is an unknown. Whether or not they will be allies is an open question. However, Liv is clear to bring drama, even if her Shipwrecked season had ratings that were low enough to get cancelled.
She seems fairly athletic but it’s definitely an open question. Her wild personality is likely to draw some ire, so she’ll need to prove herself early. If she can’t do that, she’s probably doomed.
Strength: B-
Swimming: B
Dexterity: unknown
Endurance: unknown
Puzzles: unknown
Strategy: unknown
Social: C
Amber Martinez
Amber is best known as a contestant from Are You The One? 8, which was not successful at finding everyone’s perfect match.
At 5'1, Amber is definitely the shortest person on the cast. Her build seems athletic, but next to the rest of this cast it is a very open question as to how well she can keep up in this era. I don’t say that to imply that she can’t. Her physical abilities are largely untested and she could end up being anywhere from a solid competitor to the bottom of the barrel.
Strength: C
Swimming: unknown
Dexterity: unknown
Endurance: unknown
Puzzles: unknown
Strategy: unknown
Social: C+
Lio Rush
A professional show wrestler of the WWE variety, Lio Rush is physically fit and used to mild amount of physical contact, but nothing compared to the Challenge at even its most mild levels.
At 5'6 and 160 lbs, Lio is not physically intimidating. He is likely dexterous and agile, but that’s about the extent of what he has going for him. I’m not counting him out, but he’s very much in the same category as Amber Martinez: a high variance in possible performance level at the challenge, but not an incredible ceiling either.
Strength: B-
Swimming: unknown
Dexterity: A-
Endurance: C
Puzzles: unknown
Strategy: unknown
Social: B
Nam Vo
Nam comes to The Challenge from Ultimate Beastmaster, which is akin to American Ninja Warrior. He came in second place on his episode, and honestly just being competitive on that show makes you likely to be a dominant force on The Challenge.
As a German national, my one concern for him is that he may struggle with a language barrier, but that remains an unknown. Regardless, he will probably be more than capable of holding his own in eliminations and dailies alike, with 210 lbs. to his 6'2 frame. He apparently has some experience with mechanical engineering, so puzzles could be a strong suit for him as well. As a fitness coach with some apparent MMA training, I’m watching for Nam to be the male rookie of the year.
Strength: A+
Swimming: unknown
Dexterity: A-
Endurance: A
Puzzles: A-
Strategy: unknown
Social: B
