Sometimes in The Challenge, competitors make up their own rules for the various events, and that’s what Brad Fiorenza seemed to do in All Stars 2.
In Episode 10’s daily challenge, Brad seemingly ignored the rules for the event, which ultimately resulted in a bad situation for him and his teammate. Following the episode’s release, Brad explained what happened.
This article contains spoilers for The Challenge: All Stars 2 through Episode 9 of the spinoff series.
Competitors struggled in All Stars 2, Episode 9 daily challenge
The Challenge: All Stars 2, Episode 9 featured a daily challenge called Make the Connection, where competitors were rushing around to get keys and idols on moving semi-trucks as quickly as they could.
As the teams went individually, each partner had to untie knots on four boxes on a smaller semi-truck to retrieve the keys inside. However, many of the OGs found it difficult to work with the knots. According to TJ Lavin, most of the women did well, though.
When Brad Fiorenza and Jodi Weatherton went, Brad became frustrated trying to figure out the ropes on the boxes. Rather than untying the knots, he used his strength to rip the lids off the boxes. Brad did that with all four boxes, but unfortunately, that wasn’t part of the rules.
Brad’s mishap was shown in the trailer (below) for Episode 9, with Darrell providing some extra commentary about his castmate.
TJ called out Brad’s actions during the daily challenge and said it meant they were disqualified. That DQ resulted in him and Jodi automatically getting sent into elimination. All other teams at least attempted the event before the timer ran out.
Nehemiah Clark and Melinda Collins won the event, and later, the voting sent Darrell Taylor and Janelle Casaneve into elimination. They’d end up defeating Brad and Jodi by a mere two pounds of weight in an event called Smash House, sending them home for the season.
Brad’s screw-up cost him and Jodi a spot in the final because if they’d performed better, they might have found themselves safe from elimination.
Brad explains why things went wrong in daily
Following the release of All Stars 2, Episode 9, Brad was the featured guest on MTV’s Official Challenge Podcast. During his appearance, he talked with Aneesa Ferreira and Tori Deal about where he went wrong, revealing an injury he had suffered.
“So, I just cut my hand open on the challenge before this using a stairway getting out of the cenote. There was a wood screw sticking out, and I sliced my index finger on my right hand,” Brad shared.
“Here’s how it’s related. While the rules were getting read, I had to get my finger taped up. I probably should’ve got stitches, but I was just getting one of those tape jobs to get through the day, and I wanted to make sure my hands would work properly, so I was concerned going into this,” he said.
He told Aneesa and Tori that as he was getting his finger taped in the Episode 9 filming, he talked with someone in production about the rules for Make the Connection. Brad says they told him he’d understand when he got on the truck, but he needed to “open each box and unlock the keys.”
“Ladies, there was no mention of untying knots,” Brad said on the podcast.
He explained that he decided to take full-fingered gloves for the daily challenge rather than the fingerless ones. Brad says he used the full-fingered variety to protect his injury. However, he believes he should’ve used the fingerless gloves so his fingers could work better to untie knots.
In addition to that, Brad said he saw production rebuilding something on one of the trucks after a team had finished the daily ahead of him and Jodi.
“I saw them putting wood screws into one of the boxes. So they were rebuilding it right before I went. I thought the group that went before me just did that exact same thing,” he said, adding, “I already thought other people had done that” as far as ripping the boxes open.
He also spoke about losing such a close elimination, with he and Jodi falling short by two pounds in the Smash House elimination, and how it could’ve been for many reasons, but he felt they gave it their best efforts.
Brad still said he enjoyed returning to compete on the show despite his mishap and explained that sometimes there’s a bit of extra luck required to win a season of The Challenge.
The Challenge: All Stars 2 episodes arrive Thursdays on Paramount Plus.