The Challenge has never been super consistent when it comes to disqualifying its contestants for “violence.” There have been a few obvious disqualifications (*cough*The Duel 2*cough*), but many cases aren’t quite as clear-cut.
Early in the Challenge days, we only had a few cases of “violence” on the show. The first wasn’t caught on camera (Ayanna vs. Christian on The Extreme Challenge), then we had the spitting incident on Battle of the Sexes that almost sent Puck home. In 2004’s Battle of the Sexes 2, viewers saw someone throw hands for the first time — and it couldn’t have been more underwhelming.
The teams were competing in the Cast a Spell mission, which was basically a big, shirtless word scramble game. The boys named Shane, Theo, and Dan as team captains, and they were responsible for deciding the word to be scrambled.This involved a no-talking period, during which non-team-captain Steven Hill had been jokingly making gestures.
Apparently, the judges assessed a penalty against the boys for Steven’s antics, even though he claimed he didn’t talk. And Shane took this personally, because if his team lost, he most likely would have been sent home.
As soon as the period of silence had been lifted, Shane confronted Steven, and Steven was pointing his finger at Shane. So, Shane grabbed Steven’s hand to stop this (keep in mind, these were the gestures that allegedly resulted in a penalty). Then, Steven’s ninja-like reflexes took over, and he smacked Shane in the face.
When recalling this incident, people often minimize Steven’s hit. It was enough to visibly move Shane’s head and knock his sunglasses off. But clearly, Shane wasn’t too hurt.
After the hit, host Jonny Mosely told Steven he’d be going home, and Shane clearly did not want this. Unlike Steven, Shane cried after this, and it put the boy’s team at a severe disadvantage.
So if Shane didn’t want Steven to go home, why did he? Well, we don’t know for sure. Allegedly there’s a no-violence clause in the contract, but that has been upheld very inconsistently. If I had to guess:
- The boys had been playing a very fair, predictable game, and production found the opportunity to add in a surprise.
- This season had less drama than other Challenge seasons, and it was noticeable after The Inferno. This forced a little drama.
- The boys had been winning a lot this season. Getting rid of Steven put them at a severe disadvantage during Cast a Spell, and it should have let the girls win.
I think it’s a mix of all three reasons — though despite their disadvantage, the boys won Cast a Spell. It should be noted: This was one of the missions the boys thought they could lose, because it mostly involved brains. If they had lost, Shane most likely would have gone home. If they had won and Steven hadn’t been disqualified, he would most likely have gotten sent home.
This incident was not a clear-cut disqualification for violence, and it certainly didn’t set any type of precedent. If anything, it made production look inconsistent because people had similar incidents on prior shows and stuck around. For example, Stephen Williams stayed on Real World: Seattle after slapping Irene, and Shane hit Darrell on Road Rules: Campus Crawl and wasn’t disqualified.
The decision also backfired because it left a sour taste in Steven’s mouth. He was from the super-popular Real World: Las Vegas season and never did another Challenge (though he did return for the Las Vegas Reunited season).
If anything, time has made Steven look like the real victim here. He lost an opportunity because of a silly mistake, but we’ve seen worse acts of Challenge violence get discarded. Look at the Raines brothers on Battle of the Bloodlines or Anastasia and CT on Rivals 2. If I had to compare this incident to another Challenge fight in terms of severity, it would be the time Sylvia head-butted Marie on Final Reckoning. It was a minor infraction, but in that case, Sylvia got to stick around.
Stop Being Polite 