The latest episode of The Challenge: USA showed fans that these players mean business! Derek Xiao and Shannon St. Clair talked all about that elimination that was too close for words.
The latest elimination on The Challenge: USA was the most intense one yet this season, and after a close battle, two fan favorites, Derick Xiao and Shannon St. Clair, were sent home.
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Derick and Shannon talked with Benny Adams on Let’s Binge About It about their thoughts on David and Desi sending them to go against Enzo and Jasmine, and the nailbiter elimination they almost won.
The elimination came down to seconds, with the remaining cast shouting from the stands, encouraging either Derrick and Shannon or Enzo and Justine to keep pushing. This elimination was so intense that even T.J. got in on the action by rooting for both teams.
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“The entire time your running, you have people yelling at you, and T.J. started getting into it, and I was like, bro, whose T.J. even rooting for? He doesn’t have a horse in this race right now.” Said Xiao.
Both teams had different strategies going into elimination, but ultimately, Enzo’s and Justine’s method secured their win. Shannon said even though they had a great strategy, it wouldn’t have worked for her and Derek.
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“I think that our strategy had to be tweaked a little bit because of my height, I’m 5’1 for reference, and Derek is 6 foot. Even in the beginning getting tires off the pole, I couldn’t reach them, not even if I jumped. Starting from the get-go we were frustrated because Derrick had to build a step stool with two tires just for me to climb up. If we did the pancake method like Enzo and Justine it would have got to a halfway point where it would have been all Derick.” Explained St. Clair.
It was quite a surprise when David, who is part of The Big Brother alliance, decided to throw Derick and Shannon in, but Derick said he has no bad blood toward David.
“If I had ever won power David was up there on the list that I was willing to put into elimination. People say Big Brother alliance, but I was just rocking with Kyland, Angela, and Alyssa, everyone else was on the table for who I could possibly put into elimination, so I’m not surprised at all that David sent me in.” Explained Xiao.
In the episode, it was mentioned that David wanted to make a big move in the house, but Shannon said this attention should have been on two other players that were bigger threats.
“If they really wanted to shake the room, just throw in Ben and Sarah again. That would have been crazy. I’m talking just good TV, I’m not talking personal relationships, I love everybody.” Said St. Clair. “But if he wanted to shake the room… it wasn’t really shaking anything by putting Derick and me in.”
David did want to send in two people he thought were more significant threats, But Derick says his partner Desi and the house got to him.
“I’ve talked to Desi since the game, and she said it was always me. As soon as she won it was always me and she couldn’t be swayed by that. Also, You have all these big players coming to David saying don’t make the big move, and I think he got scared out for a minute and then tried to take more of a safe bet that Desi was okay with.” Explained Xiao.
Now that Derick and Shannon have a taste of what being on The Challenge is like, fans are wondering if they will be seeing them in future seasons.
“I’m going to leave it as a maybe, definitely not a yes right now, let’s just leave it at a maybe. Said St. Clair.
David felt the same way and left it with a homage to Big Brother.
“You never know what’s going to happen. On Big Brother, you always say expect the unexpected.”
Catch the full interview below. The Challenge: USA airs every Wednesday at 9 p.m. PT on CBS.
