‘The Challenge’: Devin Walker on That Meltdown, Other Rivals & Who He Blames for Early Elimination

The Challenge: All Stars Rivals became a bitter game of backstabbery on Wednesday’s (February 26) newest episode, “Rivals in the Ruff.” Dario Medrano actively conspired against his real-life best buddy Leroy Garrett‘s team, and Frank Fox convinced Sam McGinn to use their win to vote against her biggest ally Devin Walker.

Leroy and Devin came into this season pretty hot, winning the first daily challenge and placing highly on the others (they even almost beat Frank and Sam in the trivia-turned-eating competition). They also worked well together with a relatively minor feud in their rearview and were one of only two all-male teams — along with perpetual arena-goers Adam Larson and Steve Meinke — which made even their closest pals turn against them to send them into the arena.

To find out more about how this betrayal happened, TV Insider caught up with Devin Walker.

You and Leroy seem to be pretty non-rival-ish. Was it really as friendly as it seemed? 

Devin Walker: It was one-sided because I had never done anything to Leroy. So it comes across as kind of not rivalry-ish because there was no rivalry in his mind. In fact, in the conversation we had about it, he didn’t even remember what he had done. It was his swan song season in Double Agents, and I think that he really had done something to so many people that it got lost in translation. He was like, “Wait, what did I do to you again?” So I was pissed, but he didn’t really seem to care. 

When you found out this season was “Rivals”-themed, was there anyone else you were looking around at thinking you could’ve been paired with them?  

Oh yeah. I was looking at the lineup and being like, I mean, throw a dart at this lineup, you could justify it in any capacity here. Obviously, Turbo [Turabi], “p***y chicken” level three. There’s Jonna [Mannion] and me did not see eye to eye on 40. Amber [Borzotra] and I didn’t see eye to eye on 38. … Fessy [Shafaat] ripped my shoe off in Double Agents. I mean, you go literally right down the list. Ashley [Mitchell] and I in 37. So I was literally looking around just being like, “This is quite the scenario of all the people that were there.” … Leroy was the last one that was on my mind, to be honest. 

So I guess it was kind of fortuitous in a way, then. 

Yeah, absolutely. 

So you two had a really good start. How did it feel to get off and to such an advanced position in the beginning, and then was it a bad idea to reveal yourselves as a threat that early?

Well, the thing is, me and Leroy, we were never gonna be able to hide our threat capability because there’s so much evidence of our solo abilities. Literally, Leroy has a decade and a half of taped evidence that he is a capable player, and I have just recently kind of come into my own. And probably the loudest reminder of my championship of any champion potentially ever. So, we were never really gonna be able to dodge that, especially being a guy team — one of only two guy teams in a coed game. I guess we could have tried to play possum, but I don’t think anybody would have believed it. I mean, we’ve got some cerebral players out here and it would, I think, just come across as, “They’re trying to trick us.”

Related

9 Pairs We Want on a 'Challenge: All Stars' Exes Season

What made you decide that you wanted to connect with Sam at the beginning of the season? 

So my relationship with Sam is interesting. I’m glad you brought it up. I didn’t really like the way that Sam was getting treated, and it reminded me of how I kind of was looked at when I first started this thing. I mean, me and Aneesa [Ferreira] have also talked about this, and we share in this that people’s skill sets come in all different ways. And just because you don’t possess the most obvious skill set of The Challenge — endurance or strength or whatever — it doesn’t mean that you don’t have endurance and strength in other categories or facets of your game that can be used. And I just really felt like — I didn’t really necessarily see myself in Sam, we obviously have very different lives. But her path in this game, I looked at and just had sympathy for her because I was in that boat and then not performing well on the first few challenges. It just felt like, I know she’s so smart that there’s definitely something she can bring to the table, and it felt like that was getting overlooked. Not to mention, she’s just a really fun time. I would have just said “good person,” but I’m not so sure about that anymore! [Laughs.]

Speaking of that, you put yourself as the least trustworthy. Why did you do that? And do you think that maybe brought some questions to your allies? 

So I haven’t seen the full edit of this episode yet. I don’t know how this plays out, but there’s a strategy in trivia with blind partner trivia, where you just say yourself no matter what, so you don’t ruffle any feathers. I’ve never played that way before, but the first few questions, it felt like Leroy was leaning into that. So I was just trying to match him. We’re probably the most trustworthy pair, but we couldn’t get it together. If you don’t know how many siblings you have, you’re gonna have a hard time. How am I supposed to know? You’re gonna have a hard time winning trivia about your partner if you don’t know how many siblings you have. 

How confident were you when Frank and Sam won that they would look out for you? 

I was 100% confident. Now the fatal flaw in the game was — and I really should have done my research, but I didn’t — you don’t know who’s gonna be there when you show up. It’s so obvious watching this back what Frank was doing. And this was Frank. I mean, Sam co-signed it, and she could have definitely stalemated the vote and see what happened — and Frank would not have put himself in — so she really had all the power, but he did an amazing job in emotionally manipulating her into believing that this was the best thing for their game. It wasn’t. 

Having a team that’s gonna win a lot of stuff on your side is the best thing for your game. And we would have never sent them in, literally ever. So he had his own narrative that he wanted to carve out, but I was 100% confident. She just promposal-ed me. Sam was my highest priority after Nany [Gonzalez] at this point. I mean, it was like Leroy, Nany, Sam. I was never gonna say her name. So I was really confident, especially because they told us they would never say ours. I was pretty confident. 

Similarly, Dario was close to Leroy in and outside of the game, but his reaction just went way over the top. Why did he blow up so much during all of that, and what was he trying to achieve? 

When you think you’re smart and you get caught, you’ll have one of two reactions: an overreaction or an under-reaction. Very rarely do people appropriately react. An appropriate reaction in that scenario would have been to say, “Listen, you got me. I did this thing, and I tried to essentially backstab you, and I’m caught red-handed. So let me try to make up for it by not doing the thing that I was trying to do.” That would have been an appropriate reaction. Instead, he takes personal digs and tries to spin it that I’m this manipulative person or I’m trying to strong-arm him into something. It just wasn’t the case. And I think that comes across really clearly that Dario got caught, that he was playing a very scared game, and that he lets money control his morality. And that is pathetic to me, and he has smelly breath. So it’s never, that’s not a good combo.

MTV

Speaking of smelly breath, the daily eating challenge was decided by the weight of the shakes. It was a little confusing, so I just wanted to know how you felt about the way that was ultimately determined because you guys had a chance to win that. 

I have no idea how it was determined. I don’t. It was a weird way to do it anyway because it’s like volume. What if the cups [were different?]  I mean, did you tear all the cups before … It seems like, potentially, if it was that close, just make us do an overtime or something.  But I get it. I’m sure that it was fair in whatever way they decided to rule it. I just don’t know how they landed on that. So it didn’t, to answer quickly, it didn’t make a ton of sense to me. 

Going into the elimination, how confident were you against Adam and Steve? 

Honestly, I think 50-50. The thing about Steve is he’s got so much gear. He’s got thumb tape. He’s got single-toed shoes. He’s got a utility belt. The guy is like a Challenge superhero.  So anytime you’re going up against a guy with that much gear, I think it’s a risky move to be, to be overly confident. And obviously they’ve been down there, they had nothing to lose. They knew they were going in every time unless they won. So the most dangerous person in The Challenge is the guy with nothing to lose, and Adam and Steve had nothing to lose in this scenario. So I was confident in our ability, but I knew they were gonna bring it. 

Strategically, from a “get out one of the stronger team” mentality, the correct decision was made. We could go into the nuance of why that decision is actually not strategically the best, but if you’re a bad team, getting out a strong team is good. If you’re Dario and Ashley [Kelsey], or if you’re Amber and Fessy, and you know the plan, and you have a star, it is dumb. Because we are your protection. We’re your insulation. We will always be voted in before you guys. Now we’re gone. Who do you think they’re coming after next? So, it was very short-sighted from both Ashley and Dario and Amber and Fessy. And unfortunately for them, which is another reason why I think all four of them struggle in this game, in taking the most effective route, is they fell for the lowest-hanging fruit. And they just saw the shiny object, which was a guy-guy pair against guy-guy pair, and we didn’t have to do it, and they co-signed it without thinking of the fact that that we are their insulation, we are their protection, and we’ll see how that plays out. 

The Challenge: All Stars Rivals, Wednesdays, 9/8c, MTV