Tori Denies Allegations that Elimination Against Cara Maria was Rigged

Once again, accusations of riggery have plagued Battle of the Eras. This time, Cara Maria and Tori’s elimination has come into question.

On the Death, Taxes, and Bananas podcast (about the 59-minute mark), Bananas and Tori spoke about the competitions on episode 17. The two discussed the controversy surrounding Jenny’s win in Fortress Bricks. Tori claimed that she never feels like competitions are set up for a specific person to win because they’re designed weeks in advance.

Bananas then segued into the accusation that The Final Elimination was specifically designed to cater to Tori, as Cara Maria noted that she was not a good swimmer.

Bananas seemed frustrated that Cara Maria did nothing to address these rumors, allowing conspiracies to discredit Tori’s victory. However, Tori wasn’t quite as frustrated and didn’t need Cara Maria to speak out to feel victorious. In fact, Tori said Cara never fed into the rumor, and said that the elimination will make sense once fan see the entire final competition.

Tori also addressed allegations that she should have lost because her head went under the water temporarily. She said that the refs specifically said it was OK to go underwater for a moment. This actually scared her, because she felt that she would need to basically drown to lose.

Cara Maria ended up being the one who lost after hours in the water. But, it seems very unlikely this elimination was designed to make Cara Maria lose. Historically, if we look at location changes on The Challenge, they usually result in weird eliminations.

Look at the final Knot So Fast on Battle of the Seasons — the jungle gym structure in Namibia is noticeably smaller than previous iterations in Turkey. On seasons like Battle of the Exes, Battle of the Exes 2, or Battle of the Bloodlines, the final elimination was a variation of Pole Wrestle, likely because it used so little equipment. Just like those seasons, Battle of the Era’s final elimination used required very little set up.

Cara Maria likely benefited from the randomness of a final elimination in the past. On Rivals, directly before the location change (presumably, when equipment was being packed to leave Costa Rica), Cara Maria & Laurel faced Jasmine & Jonna in Blast Off. Not only did this game use little equipment, it was also the only Jungle game that was repeated on the season. And obviously, the Fresh Meat 2 duo had a huge size advantage compared to the Cancun pair.

It might be incorrect to say that eliminations are never skewed to favor one person over the other, but it seems unlikely that The Final Elimination was designed to benefit Tori. I think we can attribute the odd game to being in the Philippines, and there was no designated location for the Arena. It really stinks that Cara Maria missed the final, but most likely, any two girls would have found themselves competing in this game.