American Ninja Warrior

This is perhaps my favorite city because of Drechsel and Graff. It was no surprise that Drew not only finished, but walked away dry with the fastest time at 1:10. When you watch for two hours you see a lot of people struggle and fall, and I can only imagine that all those people watch Drechsel with a little bit of jealousy. This is definitely a sport with a lot of support, camaraderie, and sportsmanship, but some people, like Drew, have such talent, that it must be slightly difficult for other competitors to see someone run through with such ease. I'm sure Drew is very gracious and genuine to the others. During the USA vs. The World, America's team's strategy was mainly to have fun (which threw off Jessie in the beginning) and I can only imagine that this was implemented by Drechsel. Drew seems like he has a lot of fun, and though ANW may have become his life (he opened an actual ANW gym: the Ninja Academy) he doesn't seem obsessed or competitive about it. I've nev...

San Antonio, Texas had some exciting people like Daniel Gil, Thomas Stillings, Kacy Catanzaro, Karsten Williams, and Nicholas Coolridge. I figured Kacy would make it into the Finals based on the new women rule. It seemed that there weren't as many women competing in SA as there were in L.A., or at least the women competing did not go as far. I think that for the Vegas Finals, the top two women will be Barclay and Kacy. Barclay actually managed to crack the official top 30. I think Kacy could have gone farther. She went out on the fourth obstacle, the ring one, and it really wasn't her fault. On the last jump, her ring got caught up on the very edge, she couldn't recover, and she fell as a result. If she hadn't missed that jump, I think she could have gone farther. She definitely could have made the warped wall, but I'm not totally sure if she could have passed the Pipe Fitter. I am sure she has the strength, but she looked a little taxed on the rings. It took her a...

    The kickoff to the American Ninja Warrior 2017 season began in Los Angeles, California. For this season there was a change of rules involving the women. For the City Qualifiers, the top 5 women would definitely move onto the Finals, and in the Finals the top 2 women would move onto the Vegas Finals. Of course, if more than 5 women crack the Top 30 or more than 2 crack the top 15, more will move on; however, at least 12 women will make it to the National Vegas Finals. I quite like this rule because it eliminated Wildcards. Last year, all the wild cards were given to women, which I did not like. Because of them, some women were in Vegas that didn't even do that well in their cities. For example, this year, if a woman can only complete three or four obstacles of the Qualifiers, they most likely won't make it to Vegas. This year, the women that compete in Vegas, will be more deserving. They will have actually made it decently far in their cities, unless they hit the buzzer, ...

American Ninja Warrior: USA vs. The World 2017 debuted on Sunday, June 4. Obviously, USA was part of the ANW special, and Europe returned for the third year. However, in place of Japan, this year Team Latin America competed. Team America: Drew Drechsel (Captain) Jessie Graff Josh Levin Daniel Gil Jake Murray Brian Arnold Team Europe: Tim Shieff (Captain) Sean McColl Stefano Ghisolfi Bjarke Tonnesen Owen McKenzie Alexander Mars Team Latin America: Karl Fow David Saikin Santiago de Alba Diego Gonzalez Danee Marmolejo Wid Eriksen It was nice to see Josh Levin compete. His rookie year was the previous 2016 season, and he made it to the second stage of the Vegas Finals, right with top athletes like Brian Arnold, Chris Wilczewski, and Jake Murray (two of whom were his team mates for the special). Levin was also the only one to finish the L.A. city finals in which he was competing against popular names like Jessie Graff an...