Vets & New Threats gave us two winners, and Olivia gets a lot of the attention, but she wasn’t alone. Yeremi crossed the finish line with her, and arguably, he played a bigger role in the come-from-behind victory.
Throughout the entire season, Yeremi was regarded as one of the tougher rookies. This put a target on his back, but he ultimately only went into one elimination — and it was because he & Aviv finished in last place in the Band Together challenge.
This allowed Yeremi to get to the finish line without having to see too many risky situations, but he did need to stake a claim near the end of the season to avoid a second Arena. This meant leaving Aviv as a partner and completing the season with Olivia. These two didn’t have any preexisting chemistry, but they turned out to be a solid pair.
How does Yeremi’s championship compare to others?
Now that Yeremi is a champion, he will likely be lumped into a subset: seasons where a rookie had to win. This includes Fresh Meat, Fresh Meat 2, and Battle of the Bloodines. By design, one veteran and one rookie was going to win those season, and we always knew the season would end with a rookie winner.
Compared to Aviv, Carley, and Jamie, Yeremi is easily better than Carley. Aviv and Jamie certainly had their moments, but they were never really the leaders on their teams; they were more complementary partners. Darrell excelled with Aviv because she could do puzzles, making up for his biggest weakness. Jamie was in a similar camp, he could do puzzles and he was incredible at eating competitions, making up for Cara Maria’s shortcomings.
Yeremi felt like he led Olivia through the final, as his endurance was superior to hers. This isn’t to downplay Olivia’s abilities; she was faster than Michaela and Turbo. Still, Yeremi set the pace for their team.
You could definitely make a case for Yeremi being the best winner on a season with a guaranteed rookie victor, but what about other recent rookie winners? Specifically, Turbo and Amber B.
Amber B. benefited massively from having CT as a partner, because she needed him for some parts of the final, like math, puzzles, and strength portions. There are definite merits to her victory, because she had great endurance (arguably the most important skill for a final), but Yeremi probably showed better abilities than her.
Meanwhile, we have Turbo, who won the “most brutal final” on War of the Worlds. His victory is likely more impressive than Yeremi’s because a rookie wasn’t guaranteed to win that season — in fact, a man wasn’t guaranteed to be the victor. He had to beat 33 other people to win his season. Statistically, Yeremi had a 1 in 16 chance of winning.
Moving forward, Yeremi’s victory will be held in high regards, but not the highest. His win was more impressive than someone like Emanuel’s, because Battle for a New Champion was a season full of losers. Yeremi had to compete with multi-season champs, but the veteran men on Vets & New Threats were in rough shape. It felt like the rookie women were all destined to lose because their veteran male partners were weaker than the male New Threats.
Of course, this isn’t Yeremi’s fault, but he’s not on the level of a competitor like Jordan. Time will tell if he can score another victory, and there’s certainly potential there. If he manages to get multiple Challenge titles, he could easily earn a spot as one of the greats.
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