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The Challenge’s Paulie Calafiore claims Karma Vote ‘slighted’ competitors and ‘tarnished’ championship win

paulie calafiore face shot from the challenge 40 confessional interview
Paulie Calafiore called out the Season 40 Karma Vote for how it impacted the final standings. Pic credit: MTV

Paulie Calafiore blasted The Challenge’s Karma Vote for its impact on the Battle of the Eras final.

According to the two-time MTV finalist, the Season 40 twist “slighted” one competitor in the finish and “tarnished” another’s win.

Competitors eliminated throughout the season participated in the Karma Vote. They gave each of the remaining cast members one to five points based on how they felt about them.

A one was the lowest score someone could give, while a five was the highest. These scores were factored into how competitors finished in the final standings.

During the final, Jordan Wiselely dominated on the men’s side. The Karma Vote didn’t matter as he won his fifth Challenge championship, but the women’s side featured a closer battle.

Jenny West finished atop the leaderboard, followed by Michele Fitzgerald. However, the Karma Vote dropped Michele to third, giving her $50,000 less prize money.

Meanwhile, the Karma Vote aided Rachel Robinson, who jumped into a tie for first place, giving her another championship win.

Paulie blasted the OGs and the Season 40 Karma Vote

During the Reality After Show podcast, Paulie mentioned that he felt the OG era was responsible for changing the show’s culture.

He said the earlier generation of the show used to be “absolute savages” and “absolute dogs” who didn’t care much about “being politically correct or being nice” to one another.

Instead, he said they used to mostly care about “providing amazing TV” and “amazing competition” on The Challenge.

He blamed the OGs for feeding into some of the recent “cancel culture” that led to the “play nice era” and “Kumbaya era” of MTV’s competition series.

“The only old school feel [the OG era] brought back is being old,” Paulie said regarding the earlier MTV cast members.

He indicated they haven’t brought back the aspects from their era that made The Challenge great, like “being savages” or “arguing” or “kicking a** in competition.”

Paulie mentioned that, for two seasons in a row, the winner has been decided by what seems like a “friendship vote.”

“We’ve seen seasons where the winners gave money to the losers. What have you guys done to the show?” he asked, adding, “You can’t blame people from CBS. You can’t blame somebody else. This is all your fault.”

“The fact that somebody was able to jump from third to first place is absolutely insane. I’m not taking away anything from Rachel Robinson. The fact that she was in that final was a testament to itself,” he said.

“But I cannot help but feel like Michele [Fitzgerald] got absolutely slighted and screwed over, and Jenny [West] also got absolutely slighted and screwed over,” Paulie said.

He said it would have been a statement if two cast members from Era 4 had topped the women’s leaderboard for Season 40.

“Now that is essentially tarnished because someone jumped from third to first place,” Paulie said, calling it an “injustice” that someone was able to make a jump and tie the women’s champion.

Zach Nichols also disliked the Karma Vote

Paulie isn’t the first Challenge star to publicly blast the Season 40 Karma Vote. During the Zach Nichols Podcast, Battle of the Seasons winner Zach also called out the Battle of Eras twist.

“I don’t like the Karma thing either. I think Karma’s stupid. What you’re doing is just benefiting people who didn’t have to fight and claw and scrap their way there,” he said.

He mentioned how specific competitors had to go into multiple eliminations and then choose castmates as targets after they won. That could’ve influenced their unpopularity regarding the eliminated competitors’ votes.

Zach said Tori Deal and Rachel were among the “completely insulated” contestants who didn’t participate in as many eliminations during the season.

He called Jordan’s performance through the first part of the final “dominant” and suggested how it would ruin things if the twist affected his finish.

“I’m sure they got their fair share of low scores, but at this point, after day one of this final, if they can make a way where [Jordan] loses, then it is completely rigged,” Zach claimed about the twist.

As Monsters and Critics reported, many fans also disliked the Karma Vote. Some felt it detracted from the nature of the final, making it more of a popularity contest influencing the results.

The Challenge: Battle of the Eras reunion airs Wednesday, January 22, at 8/7c on MTV. The Challenge: All Stars Rivals premieres Wednesday, January 29, at 8/7c on MTV.

Episodes of The Challenge are now streaming on Paramount+. Try it FREE!

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