“The goal is not to get to the final anymore, it’s to win.”
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the finale ofThe Challenge: Ride or Dies.
Tori DealandDevin Walkercouldn’t be beat in the finale ofThe Challenge: Ride or Dies.
‘The Challenge: Ride or Dies’.MTV
“It’s super-well-deserved on both of our parts,” Walker tells EW.
“It feels like confirmation,” Deal says.
The stress of needing to prove that we are worthy of being champs is gone, because we are.
‘The Challenge: Ride or Dies’.MTV
That pressure’s off."
I’ll have to go back to the drawing board on my tactic there.
But to any Challengers that are listening to this, bring it the f— on.
‘The Challenge: Ride or Dies’.MTV
I’m not scared.
I’m going to do it again."
Below, Walker and Deal break down their big win and more.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Going into this season, how did you feel about your chances at winning?
How did going into the first elimination of the season change the way you played moving forward?
TORI DEAL:Devin and I, neither of us really wanted to do this season.
We wanted to take a break.
We both were kind of tired afterSpies, Lies & Allies.
Sure enough, we did.
And I think that’s when it clicked for me.
Thankfully, that was a good wake-up call.
We were working with every one.
We just got lucky.
I’ll never not play the game with Nelson, he’s been my friend since our first show.
I tentatively played the game with Jay before inDouble Agents.
Bananas was my roommate.
We both have strong relationships with Nany.
And those teams just happened to win.
It wasn’t easy, but we were able to get it done.
During the 100-hour finale, what was the moment you realized you were going to win?
DEAL:It happened inside the sand room.
This is yours to lose."
It’s ours to win."
It was just beautiful.
That puzzle is really what set us apart.
I feel bad for them that that’s how it ended.
But I mean, we were very strict about our puzzle.
WALKER:I don’t feel bad at all, for the record.
Tori handles the sympathetic portion of this duo.
Kudos to her for that.
When I’m in competition, I’m so locked in.
You have to put the blinders on.
DEAL:Oh my God, it was just the worst feeling.
They had caught up to us on the bread and were just absolutely housing the spaghetti.
Devin and I were doing our best, but that whole thing took about an hour and 15 minutes.
We were in pain.
Once we got it back, we had it the whole time.
I had a pretty good understanding from the beginning that it certainly wasn’t going to be collective time.
We haven’t seen that in a long time.
It was clear to me, even on the bikes, there’s no benefit to killing ourselves here.
That’s where, to me, experience pays.
Nany actually hurt her leg initially on the bike.
Did that happen because they went too hard on the first checkpoint of a four-day final?
It certainly didn’t help.
But with that being said, you were never out of the race.
We happened to be in the lead the whole time, so it didn’t benefit us.
And so that to me was a fair trade-off.
Were there any checkpoints in the final that weren’t shown in the episode?
There were actually two checkpoints that weren’t shown where we had to do simple but ridiculous things.
WALKER:I believe there were 12 checkpoints, and we won 11 of them.
you might’t really say it should have gone any other way.
It was, for lack of a better word, a blowout.
What was the hardest stage of this final for you?
The throw-up montage did not do it justice.
There was an eyeball in one of them.
I was throwing up the whole rest of the day.
DEAL:[Laughs] Thanks for doing that, Dave.
WALKER:I support my vegan sister.
DEAL:I have to give it to that final five-hour elimination against Nany and Bananas.
By the end of it, I could not feel my hands for two days.
When I was at the airport, I couldn’t even grip my passport.
DEAL:This one was different because we weren’t alone.
I didn’t put as much pressure on myself to be successful.
It was a lethal combination.
WALKER:The goal is not to get to the final anymore, it’s to win.
We knew we weren’t beating Vince or Jenna or Bananas or Sarah.
There was no shot.
Because the people you’re going up against are willing to do absolutely anything.
Tori, how are you and Jordan doing now?
DEAL:We’re totally good friends.
And I’m so thankful for how important this experience was for us.
Being able to do it in front of him, that was f—ing epic.
It was hard in the moment, but I would do it all over again.
Looking back on this season, I wouldn’t change a thing.
When did you decide to give some of your winnings to the other finalists?
WALKER:That was in the chain room.
Tori started chatting about it a little early for me, which was when we hadn’t yet finished.
My dad used to always say, “Never do the early gloat.
It will backfire 100 percent of the time.”
But for us, it was decided before the win.
