The Zach Nichols Podcast - Battle For a New Champion EP. 13 Review w/ Scott Yager! | ZNP EP. 25

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

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What's up, everybody? This is Scott Yeager with ChallengeMania, and we're here to do the Zach Nichols podcast. Welcome back to the Zach Nichols podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Mr. Zach Nichols. Let's give a big welcome to the man and the myth, the legend, the Yeager Meister. Our guest, Mr. Scott Yeager, host of Challenge Mania, the host of several Challenge Mania events throughout the country, possibly the world in upcoming years. Welcome to Goat Media Studios. Thank you for having me.

This is very, very impressive. You're welcome. and we're giving you a couple days off from smelling farts all the time. Yeah, over there up in New York, man. Just crammed. Fart City. Seriously.

So what do you think about that crisp, nice Michigan, dank air? It's so nice. I'm guaranteeing that I'm coming back here in six months. Oh, talk about it. You got a show coming up here? Yeah.

Well, first of all, Michigan, Detroit, have been bothering me straight for six years for us to finally come here. What's pretty asshole movie you? Yeah, man. No, and there's other places. we haven't been, but Detroit is very verbose about wanting us to come. Because here's the thing.

The best, I'd say probably if you took all the reality people from their home states, Michigan might have the best squad. Come on now. It's sounding like. Zach Laurel Leroy. Yeah. Like, that's a tough and is it, Corey? Corey, I think, as well. Come on, man. Let's think. Yeah. Nicole Franzel. Xavier, Prater.

Xavier. You guys are like the Coney Island of the challenge. Like, yeah, Coney Island is for basketball, you guys are for the challenge. Yeah. I would argue that Detroit City League basketball and private school basketball is better than almost any high school basketball in the country. We got athletes here. Yeah.

But you have some Chris Baer here. I've been enjoying it. Yes. Took a nice walk the targets this morning. And that's what's crazy about our targets. You can park there. Yeah. The targets in New York City are not targets.

They're like dartboards. They're terrible. Yeah. They go up. Not only do we have the athletes here. We also have the musicians. Your kid rocked. You're Kenny Rogers.

The white stripes. Dude, Uncle Ted. Uncle Ted. Uncle Ted. Yeah, bro. All of it. So that's on top of all the great rappers. Well, Uncle Ted's the man.

Yeah, no. Uncle Ted and Uncle Barry, too. Let's get some questions. So Stanford, Connecticut. Yes. Yeah. To New York City. Syracuse.

A little dip into Syracuse, New York for college. Yeah. Went to Syracuse. You're an Orangeman? I'm an Orangeman. Yes. That's probably like my least favorite. Big East School.

Really? Oh, well, that's fine. I'm a Hoyia. Yeah. Ooh, well, yeah. No, no, no. Georgetown and Syracuse is a hell of a rock. You watch Requiem for the Big East?

What? No, there's a record. Is it a 30 for 30? You never watched a 30 for 30th, Recrefourth for the Big East? I don't think I saw it. You're not a basketball fan then. I guess not.

Are you, though? No. I'm a huge basketball fan. I'm just, how's what's all with you? What's it about? Requium for the Big East? How the Big East basically came out of nowhere became one of the, like, most respected basketball conferences,

and then it just kind of died out for a while. Sure. I know they hit like with St. John's, Yukon. Well, they all started moving. Like so we went to the ACC, right. Pit left. Um, Notre Dame left,

even though they were kind of like a weird kind of silo basketball team. Notre Dame just like sleeps with everyone. And then now it's still slut. Yeah. Catholic school slut. All right. It's true though. No,

it is true. No, but the Big East was awesome. The tournament was in the garden every year. Did you go? Um, I've been once or twice to the, to the tournament.

Yes. And then I used to go all the time when we would play like a Yukon, I would go to that away game in stores, Connecticut. Ironically named stores, there are no stores there. Connecticut's a weird place. Yeah. Oh, it's borderline terrible. Yeah, I've always wanted to go to rest. I think there's a lot of people in Connecticut that are on witness protection program.

It's a good place to hide. Seriously. I would do a wedding there a couple weeks ago and I'm like, the hell goes on here, man. If I was in witness protection, if you get, if you're like far enough up the Merritt Parkway, the hit men looking for you were going to be like, we got to turn around. I almost had a deer. Oh, for sure. But no, Biggs.

Is like that too, I bet. Yeah. No, I grew up, because I grew up in Stanford, Connecticut, rooting for the Yukon Huskies, and then got into Syracuse. Jesus. Obviously, yeah, no. I mean, Yukon to me is, again,

one of the greatest basketball programs of all time. Favorite Yukon basketball player, go. Oh, man. Probably. There's one answer. I mean. There's two, actually. My favorite player at the time when he played was Emeka Okafor.

National champion I have to give you that He's a great player He's national champion True story Ran into him On the streets of New York About four months ago

Bodyed him And uh Well no He's just like the sweetest guys He's got that great smile Walk by And I was like waiting on line For a movie

So I didn't want to get out of line So I kind of held him over He came over Talk to me for a few minutes You're no shit You're that guy Yeah And no

Well He takes pride In being that guy Yeah I loved it I could never do that No I had to Because I So when I was a senior

In high school That's when Syracuse won the national championship with carmelano and yeah yeah you were a senior yeah and i had just gotten in like two weeks before so i watched us win knowing i'm going to the school i'm like this is going to be awesome then my freshman year yukon was like the number one team in the country and mecca oaken for a college player of the year we go back up to school during winter break to see us play number one yukon and we're like unranked at the time or maybe in the low 20s and for whatever reason i don't know if it was weedies that day our center who was this like tall out of shape white guy named craig fourth who

operates like a really nice car dealership right now but at the time like you know he's just like he was one of those fives that don't exist in basketball even at the college level anymore he somehow outplayed ameka ogre for we beat number one yukon rush the court it was one of the greatest moments of my life they went on to win a national championship we were ousted in like the first or second round by vermont but whatever you know or Alabama or whatever it was but uh i told amke about the instead of telling him about his greatest moment i could do you remember getting body by Craig Forth by chance. Oh, man.

I can't believe you didn't slap you. He was so nice. That's again why I loved him as a player because he was so physically intimidating as a player. He was so great, so dominant, but just always looked like the nicest guy in the world. And he was like a great student. And he's still to this day, super nice. I can confirm.

So he's got to be number one. You answer that. My favorite you can play? Yeah, because there's three really good ones left. Kimball Walker, Rip Hamilton. There's no other question. And then Ray Allen, but three other great ones. Yeah.

Yeah, there's some good ones. All right, well, real quick, before we dive into the episode, you are coming to Detroit. I do want to highlight that one more time. That's really special in June, right? June 21st. We went and checked out the venue yesterday. Because, again, to go back to Detroit wanting us to come here for so long, we normally we do these comedy clubs.

Detroit's not like a huge comedy town. No. There's no improv. There's no, like, the places. Yeah. Yeah, we might beat your ass if you try to do comedy in the church. Right. No, that's funny.

And you try to do it, you're going to eat your ass. You know, the thing about Barry Sanders is, you know, and so we don't normally have the place. we like to normally work with. But this awesome place called District 142 hit me up. They were like, hey, we're not your standard comedy club, but we think we'd be good for you. And I dug her, you know, I dug her vibe, but I was like, I still have to see this place.

So I went to see it. They opened last March. It's awesome. It's gonna be dope. We're doing it on a Friday night, June 21st. And, you know, obviously we hope you guys can be there. Do you golf? Not like well, but I would. You know what I can.

Okay, I can guarantee. When you're here, I can guarantee you that I'll go golfing with you, but I can't guarantee T.m. Come to the O'clock. Hey, that's fine. We'll make content out of it. All right. Sounds good. Maybe he'll get, is Derek coming to that one? Is a wife going to let him on? I hope so. Well, so as I think you know, obviously, because you know, your wife, very close with Derek's wife. They're due in May. Okay. So that's going to be close. Yeah. It's going to be like a month and a half. Yeah, we have like almost like a West Wing she can stay in. So Derek's TBD as he is for, I think, every show after New York in two weeks. He's TBD, especially for the year. But instead of Derek, we bring like a Mark

long or someone else to fill in his shoes and the shoes rip off of Mark's feet because he has way bigger feet than Derek. He has a size 17s or something like that. That's Daddy Duty. But yeah. Well, we just came back from that show on Indy, which I appreciate you hosting me for. And we had a pretty awesome

lineup. We had Devin. We had DeRelle. We had Olivia. And we had, who am I missing? Kylin. Kylan. Of course. Big week for that guy. And of course, big Kylan, right? And that was a lot of fun. Zach's name got mentioned by Asaf

on your podcast. Oh, yeah. And, you know, I think one of many names. He's a... Dude, that guy, tell you what. We'll talk about him for the episode, for sure. And IQ's got to be just... Yeah.

Anyways. In the single ditch. Oh, geez. It's kidding. But anyways, thank you for coming on. Let's get into the show. Let's do it. All right.

So we come back from Michelle's elimination with Car Maria. Jay is openly targeting Kylan and Horacio at this point. The top button Cassanova. The top button bandit. Dude, he'll take a deep breath. He'll claim anything. He'll claim any set. I'm half white.

I'm half Mexican. I'm half this side. I'm half. That's a J. Big J. Wait. Who are you talking about? Jay.

Top button? Top knot? Yeah, dude. Jay, like on this season? Yeah, Jay on the season. He's half Mexican. He's half Hispanic. I don't know.

I believe it's Peruvian. Peruvian. I believe. I don't want to speak with it. I know. I know. I don't be being racist out here. You know, I do.

I see it. It's obvious. But no, but he highlighted it. He highlighted it in earlier. I had no clue you were talking about. Yeah, well, my point is, my point is he'll ban on to anything. So, yeah, they're gassed up, right? And can we just, like, agree that, like, it almost seems like, from what we're seeing,

that the 39 cast is looking at this, like, all of a sudden, it's like, wait, we want to, we want our people to beat the chance. They're, like, taking it, like, personally, and it's almost like, they're taking them, their heads out of the game, because, like, I would want every single person that wouldn't end to go home. It's only one winner. 100%. And I think the producers probably thought that was going to be the case, too.

There's 16 people going into episode 13. And here's the other thing. If you see the way everyone's acting when, if you're anyone else in the game that wants a shot to win, you're seeing the way everyone is like, just like around Michelle and like support. That to me is a red flag. You're the next person. She's the next person that I'm throwing in. For sure. If you have confidence.

She got carried out of an elimination around. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's true. If you have confidence. That never happens. Well, a lot of these people are scared.

They're playing a scared game. I don't know. What do you think? Do you think they're scared? It's not that I think they're scared. I think they're kind of falling in line with, like, for instance, this season doesn't have a Johnny Bananas, doesn't have a CT, doesn't have someone like that. They're just kind of like letting Jay be that guy.

They're like letting Michelle be that gal. I almost think it's Michelle making and all these moves and like Jay is just also falling in line and her shadow knowing like he's like, they're all insulated, you know? And I don't know. Yeah, it is, I do think it's a, it is a very scared game, but Corey, I thought this, like he called it brave. I wouldn't call it brave. But, you know, this episode, he basically says, he goes, you know, I don't want a Roscio at the end in the final. To me, I don't think that's a scared game.

I think that's a good move. Right, right. You shouldn't want to go against Coracio. That's a great point. So that wasn't going to be my question. If Kylan called it a scared move or whatever and Corey called it, whatever, if you had to choose one, is it the bravest move in the house or is it a scary? Yeah. Yeah.

Because now you have arguably the best guy in the house, like, coming for you. Yeah. You know? Although we've said this on our show, this week, is that Arrasio, by being such an honorable dude. Do you think he's really that honorable? Do you think he just knows what he's saying? Nobody is that honorable, dude.

Come on. I honestly do think it comes from a place of sincerity. I think it's awful for the challenge for him because he's the easiest person to put in. Because, look, it's like what would normally stink is that if you put him in, then he comes back with him. the vendetta or a gripe against you, but instead he's just like, no, he said he has put me in. It was actually a compliment. So he literally got mad at himself after he put in Emmanuel.

He's like, yeah, it's my fucking fault. You got to come after me next. Like, literally put it out of himself. It's just like, yeah. I'd like to see more out of him. I don't think he's given us like enough. Yeah, well, he hasn't been, his switch hasn't been flipped. Nobody has disrespected him in a way that makes him switch.

Not even about that. Not yet. It's going to take that. I just want to, I want to know how you really feel. I don't think he. genuinely really is so gracious about everything. Okay. Well,

maybe in like a real competition, like outside, like, hey, let's go play some pickup, fill in the blank. Yeah. But like,

there's a lot of money on the line. Yeah. And he's not competing with that. I understand not being someone that's like, shaking hands and doing this and doing that. But like every single time someone does anything to him, he's like, it's just another opportunity to prove myself.

Right. It's like, dude, you're the most proven mother effort in this house. We laughed at it. We literally both laughed out loud after he, gets nominated. He goes, hey, after that performance, I should be going down. And Meiji looked at each other and start bursting out left. And I get like, but like also he got sabotaged. Yeah. Like I just don't, I just want him to be like, like, just tell us how

you actually feel too. Like if that, do you think like, yeah, they're coming at me because I'm good. It pisses me off. Like, it's okay to get pissed. Like, it's okay to show that side of yourself, you know? And I did like how Corey snap back because they're right. Corrie's the first person that fired a shot, right, against the so-called alliance instead of just falling in line. Right. Instead of, you're right. And doing it in public, right? People can talk behind the shadows, but doing it in the face of everybody is a little bit different.

Well, and I hate to say this too, but like, you know who I think if she continues to do season after season is like has Car Maria, early on Car Maria, like, I guess for lack of a better word, vibes. Raven. Yeah. Because I don't like, the way her edit comes off, the way she comes off, I don't personally, like, I don't gravitate towards that character. Like, I'm almost like, I wish she would go home. But then you got to admit, someone that keeps going in and coming back, they earn that respect from you.

And that's almost like, you got to remember, like, I didn't like Carr at first either. I used to throw her in all the time. And that's what I'm seeing is like, Raven is that she's a past. Yes. Carr is a past. And I'm starting to see that more and more. And she was like, hey, listen, I loved how she was like,

it's time for us to just vote for who we all really want. Yes. That's huge. That's perfect. This is what this season needs. 100%. It leads me to my next question, which is Harass. I'm sorry, Raven specifically mentioned to her group, her faction,

is herself, Kylin, Horacio, Narice, and Zara. Now, here's my first questions for both of you guys. Do you feel like physically that is the better alliance than the other alliance? And number two, do you remember watching or being part of a season where the people winning had the least control in the game? So I'll start with you, Zach. What do you think? I mean, so wait, it's like, I think.

First question. Who's the better, physical? So Tricotio and Sar and Raven. That's a tough trio. Yeah. And Kylin. And again, Kylan is getting that same feel for me where like I don't like his character,

but I can't argue with he says things, the right things at crucial times. I may not like the way it comes off. I may not like like his delivery. But him saying that to Corey, it rattled Corey. You know what I'm saying? And then when he called out Michelle and was like,

hey, don't throw it. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? For sure. says the right thing at the right time. And so, yeah, he's, as much as I don't like his, like, character, he's doing a good job. Yeah, he's speaking up for himself.

They're the one, like, Zara, Horacio, besides Ed, Ed's the only, like, real strong competitor that's on the other side. Yep. And they got Corey, his, he seems a little bit limited in some of these things. They have Emmanuel. But at the end of the day, for me, I'm taking court. I'm taking Horacio. I'm taking Zara.

I'm taking Kylan. And Raven, who's had her back against the wall. What do you think? Well, that would matter if every week was. them playing as a team against the other lines. You don't like the randomness of the team. I think they need to pick their team. Well, that's the thing is like,

it didn't matter if Orozio is the man if Asoff's down there sabotaging him, right? And then you're completely screwing up his psyche because he feels like, oh, I just wasn't good today. When it's like, no, actually he was down there screwing things up for you. Yeah, pretending like he can't read and write. But yeah.

Yeah. And I don't like how I, like, it's not random. I don't believe that it's a random choosing of teens. And I want to see what adds so much to, someone's gameplay is like, hey, you get to, last person who wins gets to pick the teams. Now you've got to decide, do I want to be with my homie and kill it and win and make sure that we have the power? Or do I want to make a chance that put myself on a good team, but with people that I want to vote in? Like, that is a huge part of the gameplay. And they're taking that

away. And also, when you pick teams, it lets everyone see where they rank. Like, you can have someone's back until you put them in the seventh option on a team, you know? Yeah. And then you're on team with like Zara and whoever. Yeah, and it forces people, you know, I don't believe in the randomness. I'm sorry. Well, it's not, it's not random. They go and they think they evenly kind of disperse who they think. And they're not doing it to be unfair or anything.

They're almost doing it to, in their opinion, be fair. And then they like feed the names to TJ and they have them deliver it where it seems like TJ's coming up with on the spot. I'm like, Zara, why don't you go stay next to a Rasia? I don't even, I don't even want to say that it is actually random. I think a lot of times they put certain people on certain teams to trigger certain reactions in different situations. 100%.

Yeah, well, it should be a situation where you put, you know, a Naurice in a situation where she has to choose between an Olivia and a Mariah or whatever. Make those tough choices on the spot where you have two, three friends and you're like, really, really, where do you prioritize these friends in real time? I agree with you 100%. I don't trust the randomness. No. Do you remember?

I'm a big, you know, me and the conspiracies. Yeah, dude. People are controlling this stuff here, man. For sure. I challenge gods is what we call them. Yeah, no, not here because I don't. give a fuck. I'll call it what they are.

Yeah. Do you remember any season where somebody was winning so much but had so little power, the way that Horatio with four daily wins, the way that, you know, Kylan with Elimination wins, the way that Raven with Elimination wins have had zero. This is a very blatantly obvious answer. I want to know the answer. Or the world's too. Everyone who was in my alliance.

Speak on it. I mean, not that I gave a rat's ass because I made, like, I had talked to Pauley early on. I'm like, listen, you need me to win. I'm not trying to mess with you and Kara. So I knew that that alliance wasn't going to go for me, even though Cara wanted to. But like, it got to a point where it's like, dude, you're going to like, we're going to get rid of Jordan. Like, we just won. We're killing it. He's potentially the greatest finalist of all time. You want to get rid of him. Like, I just felt helpless. Did you have, did you have, did you have, I want to ask you the question. But real quick, did you have any inclination that it might be a single type of thing like towards the end or you.

I thought it was always going to end up in teams. Yeah, he had just done a single thing. So I knew it was going to end up in teams. I didn't, I suspected that it was going to get chopped down to a certain amount of people because of not even, like, this is when I knew Cam was going to be dangerous personally. She was always good at certain things, but like I saw the way she was moving in the final. And she was like, yeah, I'll carry this first, but then each girl had to carry it once. She said, but then I'm done. And I'm like, that's smart.

She wants to carry it when she's the freshest and then she's going to literally sit the rest of the day and wait because she knows that what I know. And that's why when Pauley was like, who wants to take the first break? I was like, I don't care. He's like, you do it. I'm like, perfect. Because I knew someone was going to die because that was heavy as shit. And it was him.

Yeah, but he got screwed. Oh, how so? He just got screwed. Yeah. Do you remember a season where somebody was winning so much and had so little power? Interesting. I mean, to me, it depends on what you mean by power, right? Because it's like, are they, do they have the power in this regard to be putting in who they want to put in?

no, but if you're winning and you're immune and you're not going in, to me, that's a form of power as well, right? That's better power because not having to say a name and just being safe is great. Like Olivia this week, it was like so nice. Let's wipe your hands clean of it, you know? I have nothing to do with it. I'm outvoted. Yeah, I'm outvoted. We'll see you.

I'll see you next week. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the names you remember when you look at a season, the ones who are getting into the argument so I can't believe, like the people who I think played the most seamless games. And then when you look back on it, you're like, oh, wow, they did have a lot of power are the ones who you almost never thought of because they were winning when they needed to win. And then they were like, all right, you guys argue over who's going in. And then at the end of the season, you're like, wait, how did they get to the end without

ever having to go in? Or like, here's a guy this season, I think, who in a way, his name gets thrown out a little bit, but Emmanuel, right? Like, Emmanuel has all these, like, I guess ties where he's third or fourth on all these people alliances. It's like, I would have thought this guy was going to get thrown in every week. Yeah, he's kind of sitting pretty. He's been out of sight out of mind.

Yeah, exactly. We'll definitely get to the remaining guys later. So I appreciate you guys answering that question. We see Olivia once again discussing Horacio and his relationship. relationship maintenance so brilliantly coined by my boy over here. It's true. A phrase. You see the people that go and have conversations with everyone every day, those people

are maintaining their relationships because what you, a lot of like what a lot of people don't understand is like someone like Horacio, he has a conversation with you day one, right, even at the airport. And he's like confident enough like, hey, he said we're good, we're good. Like I don't, but that's not how people are in the challenge. They need to be reassured a lot. Yes. So you see the people like Chanel, she said every morning I was,

up I had conversations with everyone. That's what you have to do. You maintain them so that throughout the whole day, no one's thinking like, oh, Zach hasn't talked to me. He's probably coming for me. You have to maintain and make sure people, you know, just get a good feel on everyone throughout the day. And that's also how you can gauge if they're going to go for you.

Yeah. And Burnah suggests that Jay. Burner Sanders. Yeah, Berna Sanders. She's always like dramatic scene. Cut to Burna just politic and her ass off. Yeah. Yeah.

She's a super star. Oh, gosh. Superstar. When you started to talk about Caramria earlier, I thought you were going to say, Berna, a lot of people have been comparing Burna personality-wise to really Caramaria. Burnah is so Camilla.

She's not Cara whatsoever. Carver was like the little engine who could in my mind. And Camilla was a little more of like the shit-talker. And Berners a shit-talker. All right. Burner likes to like, like, like, just spice it. Yeah, spice it up. She likes it.

Which leads me to my question. She suggests. Wait, what was that? She had, what you lead? Oh, yeah, that. A little twist. Super twist. Very, very super.

So she suggests that Jay really is your number one, Olivia. In this scenario, I'm curious to know your opinion and how you analyze the gameplay. Who has played a better all-around game? Jay? Yeah. Or Horatio up to this point. That concludes the free preview of the Zach Nichols podcast. So go to Patreon and subscribe to see the rest of the shit that we talk.

Go do it. Now. Thank you.