‘The Challenge’ Stars Derrick Kosinski & Averey Tressler Reflect on Season 40 Struggles

It was yet another brutal week for Era 1 in The Challenge‘s latest episode, “The Era of the Gladiator.” Though Derrick Kosinski, who was still suffering from a brutal leg injury, successfully made a deal with Era 4’s Theo Campbell that would keep himself or Rachel Robinson being thrown into the elimination arena, it was out of anyone’s hands when Era 1 lost the daily challenge. To Theo’s credit, his team did align with Era 1’s two remaining players on the field, but there wasn’t much they could do to prevent them from having the fewest players left on the battleground at the end of the challenge.

Meanwhile, Cory Wharton caused a bit of a scuffle by downplaying Derrick’s efforts during the daily, and their argument boiled over into the deliberation. That left him and fellow Era 3 target Averey Tressler as easy marks for the arena, and they were handily voted into it.

In keeping with the Gladiator 2 theme of the day, Rachel and Averey and Derrick and Cory had to suit up in sparring gear and punch out each other’s markers. And while Rachel had the upper hand from start to finish, the results were not quite as clear between Derrick and Cory — and it came down to a matter of time, not points.

After such a brutal showcase, TV Insider caught up with Derrick Kosinski and Averey Tressler to reflect on their season — in which they both faced multiple elimination challenges — and to find out the status of Derrick’s leg now. 

(Also, be sure to check our previous exit interviews with Mark Long, Nurys Mateo and Paulie Calafiore, Jodi Weatherton, Tony Raines, Aneesa Ferreira, and Darrell Taylor and Tina Barta.)

Derrick, how is your leg now?

Derrick Kosinski: I’m three months post-op. It was a torn ACL and meniscus and a slight torn HCL at the time, just to kind of give people context on what it was, moving around, why it was… what the body can and can’t do on a torn ACL and meniscus [in the arena]. So, yeah. Anyway, three months post-op.

During this challenge, you felt disrespected by what Cory said to you during and after the challenge, but then afterward he seemed to show you some respect after the elimination. Are you guys okay now? 

Derrick: I really don’t know. I haven’t talked to him. It was such an emotional and intense moment. The last few moments there all the way from even — I hate seeing myself on TV getting into like what almost looked like a physical altercation because I think that without actually saying it, I think I said, “Well if you wanna fight me right now in this mud, we can fight, you know.” So I don’t really like seeing myself like that. But then, of course, it just kind of leads into, well, we talked about doing this over there during our verbal altercation. So now let’s just push ourselves into this situation, and I think there’s a mutual respect for one another when you beat the hell out of each other. And I don’t know how much I really beat the hell out of him, but I definitely know that he felt the heat as, you know, it came down to the wire for him where he almost lost to a guy on one leg pretty much so, pretty much.

Averey: You did have one leg, sir. 

Derrick: I mean, it was just funny. It’s not funny; it’s just seeing how it moves the body when you can’t put pressure on it because the knee is slipping out. I mean, it sucked, but like I’m glad it was during the Gladiator 2 promo. So I hope that the Gladiator 2 movie got a solid promo in from Derrick. I think he said, “Derrick F**king Kosinski doesn’t go down without a fight.” That was it.

Averey, your first time in the arena was due to a stalemate, so similar question for you. Are you and Tony [Raines] okay now?  

Averey: I haven’t talked to him, so I honestly don’t know. He probably hates me or wants me to go f**k off. I personally have no qualms with him right now. I think that, in our elimination, it was very karma justice — I have nothing bad to say because, at the end of the day, he went home and I stayed, so it kind of took care of that. I think personally, he’s a great athlete, he’s a great competitor. I actually enjoy being around him. I think that was the most like disappointing thing is that he never talked to me. And I will say this to the day that anybody who doesn’t want to hear my breath, he never spoke to me as a partner. There was never a partner discussion and with him, I was very open and honest with communicating about why I wanted to keep Derek [Chavez], why I wanted to keep Aviv [Melmed], why I thought this was the best decision for not only our era but for the rest of the house. And he’s never really given me a good answer other than the whole, “Well, you were just so adamantly put your foot down with Derek.” I’m like, “Well, I need something more than that. I need you to actually like talk to me and respect me and communicate because at the end of the day, we were paired up and your feelings and my feelings were the reasons we got down there.” But do I hate him? No. Do I wish him any harm? No, I still like him. I still think he’s a fun guy. I just don’t agree with this game move.

It’s funny to have you guys here together because Averey, you were actually the one to send Derrick in as a target, which ultimately got him in the elimination against Horacio [Gutierrez Jr.]. Were there any hard feelings there or was it just part of the game?

Derrick: We finally talked in depth at a Challenge Mania Live this past weekend in Raleigh, North Carolina. I said it took me about — I waited three months to kind of have this conversation with her. But I mean, it’s a game move in the end. What you guys didn’t see is I heckled her to try to drown out the noise from any information that her teammates were trying to give her during that elimination because I was trying to help Jodi [Weatherton]. I’ve known Jodi forever. She’s my Road Rules sister from another mister, and I was trying to give her everything that I could to help her win. But that came by way of me trying to cancel out any information that was trying to be sent over to Averey. So when she said, “Well, I’m gonna put you in because you’re not looking at me,” I was like, “Horse s**t! You should be putting me in because I heckled you for an hour not because I didn’t look at you.” [Laughs] So, no, no hard feelings. It’s just a game and it’s like it just so happens that our games collided at that moment like that.

Averey: Yeah, I had no idea what they were gonna do. So I was definitely not prepared from — I’ll tell you this, from winning a daily to volunteering myself to prove to my team that I was here for their era. I’m not a selfish player. From being so up top to then having to go into the arena then having to choose people, I’m like that to me wasn’t even a true win. Going into elimination, winning the challenge, and it just didn’t feel like a win for me. I’m like, no matter what I do, it’s like, I didn’t even win. I wasn’t even coming back safe.

I’m like, “No, I already have to piss off four people that I don’t even know.” I didn’t even know anybody. The only people that I knew from The Challenge were everybody that I competed with on [Era] 4 and a little bit of 3. And I’m just like, “Wow, I don’t even have a time to create an alliance or some sort of rapport with anybody.” I just had to shoot from the hip, and for me, I’m like, oh, I couldn’t win in that situation. There was no winning. That’s how I felt on our episode. I didn’t win no matter what happened. I couldn’t get up. I was pissing somebody off or upsetting somebody. Yeah, for me, it wasn’t a real win. But what are you going to do? Like Derrick said, it’s a game, and you got to make choices to win.

Derrick: I’m gonna have to play devil’s advocate here. Averey, you did win. You beat Jodi, and that was a big win, and you should be proud of yourself because I’ll be honest with you when it came down to it, it was you versus her. And because I was — we were hoping that you didn’t hear anything that your teammates was telling you. And so you won that like you gotta take that, you beat a Challenge champ, a two-time Challenge champ.

Averey: I appreciate that.

Moving on to this elimination, Averey, what was it like to be on the receiving end of Rachel’s punching power? And did you know she had that martial arts background?

Averey: I did not know she had a martial arts [background] but definitely knew Rachel could handle a punch. I mean, look at that woman. There are men — probably most of the men on the show don’t wanna go up against her in a boxing match. I’m one of the smallest female competitors that we have and I had to go up against her. I’m like, “Whew this isn’t gonna be fun for me,” and it definitely was not fun for me. But I can proudly say I did it and I can take a beating pretty well. And I’m not upset that, you know, it was Rachel. I think in my Challenge career, I’ve been eliminated technically twice. But I guess you could count the purge with Laurel [Stucky]. I’ve got beat up by Laurel. I’ve gotten beaten by Nia [Moore], who I lasted an hour and a half with. And then I also got beat by Rachel. To be one of the smallest females that we have on this show… And those are the three people that eliminate me. Those are pretty three hard strong women, like to the point the men don’t even want to go against them. So for me, I’m just taking it with a grain of salt and, you know, I really like Rachel. I mean, truthfully, she’s always been that figure for me. So if I have to go out, I’m glad it went out by her and not somebody that I felt like, “Oh, I could have done this, I could have done that.” I was like, “No, that f**king Rachel. She truly teaches fitness classes, check out her biceps. She does it for a living. Come on!” So I can’t beat myself too, too bad about that. She works out every day. I do not work out. I need to, but I do not.

Derrick, you also went against Mark Long, and size-wise, there’s a big disadvantage that you had there. How did you best him? 

Derrick: Well, I’ve pole-wrestled before. I’ve lost, I’ve gone home and worked on how to try to figure out this situation in case I get into it again. I did. And how did I best him? I was just better that day. I was better at the game. 

Averey: You were locked in though, dude, you were locked in. There was no way he was getting that pole from you.

Derrick: It was close. It was closer than what people may think because I’m in the trenches, and I can actually feel how much my forearms are burning and how much like I have, how much grip I have left. But I just kept a better — how do I say it? Just my technique was better. It was just good. It was good, as opposed to in the past, it was bad. But because I beat Mark…

Averey: You were very tight, you were very tight. Where he was more loose.

Derrick: Yeah, I wasn’t losing my position. The leverage that I had, I wasn’t getting rid of it. So the only thing that he could do is make a move, and that’s what I needed him to do. If he made a move, I was not moving from where I was at rock solid. But this is why I don’t like this game, too. I think that we should move from the pole wrestle to the double rings, the ones that you saw with Joss [Mooney] because I think there’s more action, there’s more tripping, there’s more hitting, there’s more body-checking. I think that might be scaring you a little bit there, Averey, but I think the pole wrestle is a little bit boring because it’s just not a lot of action. But because I beat Mark, and because I beat Horacio, that’s why I felt confident in beating even Cory with one leg.

And going back to the Rachel effect here, the Rachel factor — and I hate that we’ve got Averey sitting here on the other side — I wanted to put in Averey. I wanted to put Rachel in a better position to continue the game because I knew that, win or lose, I wasn’t going to be able to continue the game much longer. So I wanted to leave my era, my teammate, my friend with hopefully something that maybe will help put her in a better position

Averey: I mean, I think it was a great game play, just as a viewer, as somebody that actually enjoys watching it. It made sense. What’s her best chance of coming back to the house? It makes sense. That’s one thing. I can never be like, “Oh why did they pick me?” I’m like, “No, logistically it made sense. Would you rather her go up against Cara Maria [Sorbello]? Come on, there’s a 50/50 shot with that one. It just makes sense percentage-wise.” So I’m not even mad about that. I wish I had a smaller girl or somebody that was equivalent to me — even Jodi, I’m like, “Jodi is a beast. That’s why I gotta go up against her.” I’m like, “Okay, can you give me like a Nurys [Mateo]? Somebody that’s at least like my similarity — or Olivia [Kaiser]? Someone that I can kind of toss it with?” But I think from a game standpoint, I was so smart. It just makes the most sense to me on the receiving end.

There were so many players to cover this season. Was there anything you wish fans had seen on-screen that didn’t make it? 

Derrick: There’s a lot. That’s the problem. It’s crazy because I’ve been in and out of the game for 20 years now. Actually, this is Road Rules X-Treme’s 20th-year anniversary. And I’ve watched these episodes go from 22-minute episodes, 30 minutes on TV to, I think, an hour and 15 minutes episodes to hour-and-a-half episodes on TV. I think they need to go to two hours because I think there’s a lot of stuff that was missed or left on the cutting room floor. I gave you one. I thought 100 percent they were gonna show me and CT [Tamburello] trying to drown out the noise with Averey. I thought 100 percent that was the first time you guys are gonna see me being an asshole.

The Challenge, Wednesdays, 8/7c, MTV