The Challenge star Fessy Shafaat could have a rough third season in store for him, based on his time spent on the Double Agents season.
In fact, his castmate, and someone who may have been amongst his allies or friends, Cory Wharton, recently commented Fessy will be “coming in worse” for his next season.
The comments arrived just after MTV’s Double Agents reunion aired, where Cory had shared some key advice with Fessy about how to improve for the future.
Cory spoke about Double Agents season, Nelson vs. Fessy
Cory Wharton, one of the runner-ups at the Double Agents final, appeared on MTV’s Official Challenge Podcast episode. Co-hosts Aneesa Ferreira and Tori Deal asked his thoughts about the past season.
He said the Double Agents season took a lot out of him “physically and mentally,” and it felt like it was never going to stop. Once it had ended, Cory left with $50,000 in prize money in his eighth Challenge season as his cut for finishing second-place with partner Kam Williams.
He shared this final helped him “gain more confidence,” and he wants to prove he can win it all as the next step in his Challenge journey. When asked about something he might have done differently, he said he wished he had fought more for his friend Nelson and that maybe he’d been in that Hall Brawl elimination against Fessy instead of Nelson.
Instead, Cory earned his Gold Skull during the season in a later elimination against veteran competitor Darrell Taylor.
Cory Wharton suggests Fessy ‘start becoming a better teammate’
Tori and Aneesa brought up Fessy, too, since he was involved in some major incidents during Season 36. One of those included blindsiding Cory’s friend Nelson by volunteering to go into elimination against him.
That ended up sending Nelson home and making Fessy an instant villain. It also brought a heated segment as Cory confronted Fessy in the episode following Nelson’s elimination. MTV uploaded a video clip (below) of that confrontation on Instagram before the episode.
Along with that, Fessy was seen complaining about various teammates throughout the Double Agents season. He basically felt he was unable to showcase himself as an individual competitor due to the format of the game involving working with a partner.
During the podcast, Cory said he respects Fessy as a competitor, but he had a “messy” season. Tori asked if Cory thought Fessy would be improved for his next attempt at trying to win The Challenge.
“No, he’s coming in worse. We’ll see. Hopefully, it’s a format where he can showcase that. Something that we did learn is that a lot of his partners said that he wasn’t the greatest to work with. If there’s one thing that I would tell him, it’s like, ‘Hey, you gotta start becoming a better teammate, because this isn’t always an ‘I’ game,'” Cory shared on the podcast.
When Fessy finally had a teammate he felt was a good competitor, Kaycee Clark, she ended up suffering an unfortunate injury during the final, causing them to finish fourth. That said, Cory also mentioned he thinks Fessy will get into a situation on The Challenge at some point where he goes into an elimination that doesn’t play to his strengths, and he’ll lose.
When it came to teammates, Cory was said to be cursed during the Double Agents season. Most of his partners ended up getting sent home in some way or another. As a rule, if a competitor lost their partner, it meant they became a Rogue Agent and didn’t participate in the next mission and weren’t eligible to go into elimination.
Once he finally won his elimination, he used the available option to steal a new partner and chose Kam as his teammate just ahead of the Double Agents final. That seemed to work to his advantage as they took home second-place prize money. Third place received nothing for crossing the finish line.
Fessy received advice at Double Agents reunion
The Challenge: Double Agents reunion may have been a Fessy intervention of sorts, as many topics involving the sophomore competitor came up for discussion. However, he received valuable feedback from castmates that could benefit him in the future.
That included Cory sharing some words of wisdom with Fessy about embracing the quality of humility.
“If you were to be a little bit humble, bro, if there’s one thing that I could teach you, if there’s one thing you’ll take away from me, it’s just, if you had a little bit more of that humble pie…I think it’s gonna better you in the long run,” Cory told Fessy during the reunion.
Fessy may have actually taken what his castmates said into consideration too. During the closing moments of the reunion, host Vernon Davis asked if anyone had additional comments. Josh Martinez and Fessy each spoke up to express their appreciation and respect for everyone.
“You know, I know this season was real intense, and there was a lot of things that went down, but I just want to apologize if I hurt anybody’s feelings. Sometimes competition gets the best of me, and you guys are helping me grow too. So I appreciate all of y’all, and I have love for every one of you,” Fessy said.
His castmates seemed to appreciate the sentiments as they applauded his statement during the closing credits. Now it remains to be seen if Fessy continues to show love in future seasons, or further embraces the role of the villain.
The Challenge Season 37 premiere date is TBA in 2021 on MTV. The Challenge: All Stars episodes arrive Thursdays on Paramount Plus.