Get In the Ninja Spirit

It’s a little early for American Ninja Warrior talk, so you might be upset to even see that this is a topic, but it’s not my fault I’ve got obstacles on the brain. You can blame whoever was behind the decision to announce that Philadelphia will be one of the Ninja cities for the 2018 edition of the show. It’s sent me straight into planning mode for a trip that isn’t for another five months or so. I’ve already signed up for the ticket waiting list three separate times just to make sure that I’m on the right one.

However, there’s only so much preparation you can do for an event in the spring when it’s snowing seemingly every three days. Therefore, I need to get out my ANW related energy through the posting medium.

I’ve taken the liberty of reviewing my document of results from this past ninja season (I’ve got a fairly in depth excel spreadsheet like any other casual fan) and am trying to determine what trends could hold up as move to Season 10. As I see it, here are the key questions I gleamed from last season’s stats that may (or may not) be something to watch for the next time you turn on NBC for a show that isn’t “This Is Us”.

 How will the evolution of women continue in Season 10?

In many ways, Season 8 was the year of the women. Jessie Graff became the first woman to finish Stage 1 and then later, in USA vs. the World, toppled Stage 2. Not only was that huge for women in the sport, it was huge for the sport. Graff instantly became the most marketable star the show had (and helped push Kacy out the door to wrestling) and skyrocketed the shows YouTube audience. Let’s be honest, feminists around the world were sharing Graff videos on Facebook to represent their gender proudly. Even if they didn’t know the show at all.

Ultimately, that’s good news. The more views/money the show can get, the better it is for all people involved. So in Season 9, the producers saw this as their chance to A) get more women a prominent role in week to week action and B) get rid of an obviously flawed wild card system, but making specific qualifying spots only for women.

Although I wasn’t a huge fan of it, it’s hard to deny that it worked. We had a huge surge in female productivity last season. Not only did we have a new woman conquer stage one (Alyssia Bierd), but we had a bunch more come inches away. Jessie Graff, Jessie Labreck and Barclay Stockett all made it to the final obstacle of Stage 1. Meagan Martin, another veteran star on the woman’s circuit, was very close to completing Vegas’s first challenge as well. If it wasn’t for the new women rules, Bierd would not have qualified outright for Vegas. Neither would Stockett or Martin. Now they are all confident, experienced and hungry to continue to represent the gender on the sport’s marquee stage.

However, is this success sustainable? Will we have two women finisher’s on Stage 1 in Season 10? I’m not positive. Although it’s hard to deny the depth of the female field is growing quickly (look at last year’s Cleveland field), last season also featured a record number of Stage 1 finishers in general. There were 41 finishers for Stage 1! I’d be surprised if they make Stage 1 that easy again this time around (easy, of course, being a relative term). A stricter time limit could make things extra tricky as part of the reason for our near misses on the women’s side was the clock.

That being said, I think we will continue to see progress. I think Graff has great odds of getting to Stage 2. She has been one of the best performers over the past two season, regardless of gender. Bierd has done it before, I think Labreck can get there and they should add Michele Wranky to the mix this year (she got knocked out because Cleveland is stacked, but my guess is Labreck doesn’t compete on the East Coast since it sounds like she’s moving to Chicago). Add in Martin and Stockett plus the inevitable next generation of Graff watchers (just like the current generation is influenced by the OG top gal in Kacy) and you’ve got something good cooking.

How will the Ninja rookies do?

Last year, we saw some big time performances from Ninja rookies. Tyler Gillett led the way as perhaps the top scoring rookie who advanced to Stage 2, but there were also guys like Kevin Carbone (a genius obstacle maker) who were impressive. And honestly there may have even been more rookies that I didn’t know about. Using the data from anwfantasy.com, there were no historical results for top finishers like Josh Silanas, Jody Avila and Hunter Guerard. All three of those guys advanced to Stage 2 with Silanas and Avila making it all the way to the final obstacle on the course. And, last but not least, there’s Charlie Andrews. The MIT student showed the most promise in city finals before his tragic, life-threatening injury before the Vegas Finals (by the way, Andrews is back training these days).

This year, ANW has announced they are lowering the minimum age from 21 down to 19. That’s huge as we will essentially have three years-worth of rookies in one class. There’s typically a guy or two from that rookie class who is a contender for a top 15 spot in the Ninja world. Before Gillett and Andrews, it was Josh Levin. Before Levin, it was Daniel Gil. If you’re telling me there are three year’s worth of Josh Levin’s out there, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to contain my enthusiasm.

Who is this year’s redemption story?

Unfortunately in Ninja, one little mistake knocks you out of the whole competition. In Season 8, we saw those tiny missteps come back to haunt the likes of JJ Woods, Lance Pekus and Abel Gonzalez. However, those guys all came back with a vengeance in Season 9 and their redemption stories made for epic runs through Vegas. All three guys made it Stage 2 and were one obstacle away from Stage 3. Pekus had one of the fastest qualifying times on Stage 1 (he was 4^th in the final tally). JJ Woods was one of the 10 best Ninjas in fantasy scoring last year, nearly defeating his City Finals course in Daytona. Those guys were valuable sleeper picks if you only looked at one year’s worth of results.

If you are looking back through the 2017 Vegas Finalists, you are going to miss marquee names like Jake Murray, Chris Wilczewski, Grant McCartney, Ethan Swanson and Neil Craver. Some of those guys, like Murray and Swanson, fell during qualifiers while others (Wilczewski, Craver) were nowhere to be found on the TV broadcast. One of these guys is going to have a big year and make it Stage 2 in Vegas. But who will it be? I like Wilczewski (he’s in an even year after all) who you can bet will be back as he’s a gym owner with a big ninja backstory. I also think Jake Murray could do big things. He has a real chance to evolve into what Flip Rodriguez has become-a guy who has the potential to go fast, but is much more disciplined than he was in his younger days. But hopefully, Murray still keeps up his antics.

Who is this year’s next year’s redemption story?

Before Jake Murray was a redemption story candidate, he was a candidate for a top 10 spot among his fellow ninjas. We don’t necessarily see the slip ups coming and they can happen to anybody. So who do we think it will be this time? Murray was a reasonable candidate last year because he likes to go fast. Sometimes that catches up to you.You also have to be careful about the overconfidence factor. You can’t take any one obstacle for granted. Maybe that means one of our top ninjas from Season 9 could slip when they return to the course this year.

I’m a little nervous for one of my personal favorite ninjas, Najee Richardson, who I think could potentially take a step back in 2018. I’m also a little worried about speed demon Drew Drecshel, although I’d have a hard time not giving him the #1 spot in any Ninja rankings. However, the Ninjas these days have learned so much from the Ninjas of the past, that they just seem less likely to make a big mistake.

Is this show going to get easier or harder?

As mentioned, last year we had a huge number of Stage 1 finishers. It made those episodes very exciting because you truly believed everyone who stepped up on the stage had a chance to finish the course. There were 41 finishers after just 17 guys did it in 2016. The previous record (38) belonged to the 2015 season which was the deepest Ninja season ever (even beyond the two winners that we had). On Stage 2, we had over 20 competitors make it to the final obstacle, including some relatively no-name guys who were just breaking out onto the scene.

But conversely, the City Finals courses were very tricky this year. In Kansas City, nobody finished the course (although that may say more about the field in KC than anything else) and we only had 1 finisher in each of San Antonio, Daytona and Denver. Only three of those 26 to face the final Stage 2 obstacle (Wing Nut Ally) actually defeated it and it took out the biggest names in the game including last year’s Stage 3 qualifiers Drecshel and Gil. And, most importantly of all, we didn’t have a winner.

In my opinion, one of the biggest problems with Ninja these days it’s become too predictable. The way they structure the show makes it pretty clear exactly what obstacle people are going to get to on the course. For City Finals, they set it up so that the first runner always made it to the first obstacle of the back-half of the course to set up the “killer obstacle” on that side of the wall. They give out POM Healthy Runs in the finale before Stage 3 happens (thanks, now we know there are no more finishers …) and they show people on the Stage 3 obstacles during the preview for the show so you know who is going to advance (see Richardson, Najee).

And if you want to be really picky, in Vegas they jump around so that the actual order of when people are running is not the same as the order they show people on TV so that they can spread out their finishers as they see fit (for the record, in Vegas they run the course in reverse order based on their time in the qualifying). For most people this isn’t a problem, but when you have a list of what order everyone is supposed to run in, that kinda makes it predictable again. Like I said, Stage 1 was the peak of the show for me and my friends this past year, because it was the only time we felt genuinely surprised.

I’ve gotten a little off track here, but it had to be said.

Although, all this isn’t really related to the show getting harder or easier, but it’s still meaningful to remember a fan’s prospective. Because ultimately, I think fans want people to beat the course. If you have too many season’s end with no one pulling off the win, I think it leaves a bad taste in your mouth for the next year. In my opinion, the show needs somebody to climb the Mountain this year (and that’s only sort of a metaphor) or it’s going to lose some of its appeal. For that reason, I think they will try to make some of the courses a little easier and get our number of finishers up on the city finals courses and hopefully in Vegas.

All I know is, I don’t want to see the Wedge this season. I think that’s a broken obstacle.