Episode 5 of Battle for a New Champion was a big one. For the first time a champion entered the game, and Jordan ended up stealing $10,000 from the prize pot. But, more happened in the Arena than what viewers saw.
For starters, King of the Hill had five rounds, but the episode portrayed it as only having three heats. This type of thing is not uncommon on the show. Production needs to edit the final product, so they’ll give viewers a shorter highlight reel, but fundamentally, it doesn’t change the end results. And by all accounts, this is true. Jordan did win.
How he won is a bit less clear.
When you watch the episode, a few things seem a little choppy during the Arena battle. For example, Jordan allegedly “gave” Ciarran two points, but it’s unclear if the clock is running during this period. Also, there’s some tackling and a reset. A lot of this can be attributed to the fact that there are five heats spliced into three.
If you look closely throughout the elimination, you’ll see the shoes change.
At first, Jordan is wearing yellow sneakers. Ciarran tackles Jordan, and one of his shoes comes flying off (the lost shoe flies off screen, but Jordan briefly has only one yellow shoe). Later, Jordan is seen wearing just his socks but Ciarran is in his sneakers. At some points, no one is wearing sneakers.
If you rewatch the elimination and you focus on the shoes, it breaks all continuity. Sneakers disappear and reappear throughout each heat we see on TV.
Allegedly, this led Jordan to demand resets and he was losing the elimination at first. Ciarran has also claimed it was a much closer match, and there was more physical contact than we saw on TV.
According to Nurys, Jordan complained that the rules were unfair and unclear to both competitors, but Ciarran responded by saying that the rules were clear to him.
In the end, Ciarran confirmed that Jordan won. Even if it was a close match, and even if he won two heats, Jordan ultimately earned the victory. So it doesn’t seem this elimination was rigged, but there’s definitely a bigger story than the one seen in the final edit.
UPDATE: Jordan cleared up his side of the story — confirming there were five heats in the elimination. He also clarified that shoes played a big role. Ciarran lost a shoe in the first round and Jordan stopped. Then, Jordan lost a shoe in the second round, but Ciarran didn’t stop. But this didn’t violate any rules, so this is all fair enough.
Regarding the “rules” issue, there is truth to that as well, but it surrounds wrestling. Apparently, Ciarran wrestled and they got reset. Then there was another wrestling match, but they weren’t reset. Mind you, Jordan was losing that round, so wrestling was chipping away at his time. So, Jordan wanted this to be clarified because it could change his strategy. If wrestling is allowed, he’d score a point and wrestle to run down the clock.
By the time round 4 came around, Jordan had lost 2 of the 3 heats. He wanted to clarify if rules had changed regarding wrestling, and the refs were unresponsive. They blew the horn, round 4 began, and Jordan didn’t move because the refs weren’t communicating. This is where Jordan “gave” Ciarran two points. After the refs responded, they offered to reset round 4, 0-0, but Jordan allowed Ciarran to keep the two points because he didn’t go when the first horn was blown.
He also stated that rules often change mid-elimination, which sucks, but it’s part of being on The Challenge.
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