American Ninja Warrior, NBC’s obstacle course competition airs tonight with an all 2 hour Sunday, May 29 Special Episode called “All Stars,” and we’ve got your recap down below! On tonight’s episode After a history-making seventh season, “American Ninja Warrior” celebrates with its first-ever All-Star special edition
For those of you who don’t know, the action-packed series follows competitors as they tackle a series of challenging obstacle courses in both qualifying and finals rounds across the country.
On tonight’s episode per the NBC synopsis, “after a history-making seventh season, “American Ninja Warrior” celebrates with its first-ever All-Star special edition. Hosts Matt Iseman and Akbar Gbajabiamila have each selected their own teams comprised of five competitors, including one rookie and one female competitor.
The teams will go head-to-head for bragging rights and the championship trophy. The show features five “supersized” skills and obstacles competitions-a giant peg board, a 40-foot Salmon Ladder, the Flying Shelf Grab, Jump Hang and the “Mega Wall.”
Tonight’s episode looks like it is going to be great and you won’t want to miss it, so be sure to tune in for our coverage of NBC’s American Ninja Warrior at 9:00 PM EST! While you wait for our recap hit the comments and let us know how excited you are about the show so far.
Tonight’s episode begins now – Refresh Page often to get the most current updates!
#AmericanNinjaWarrior tonight is a supersized course that will be tackled by some past ANW all-stars including last year’s winner. First up on the All-Star Special in Las Vegas is Matt and Akbar introducing the teams that they selected.
Team Matt is Joe Moravsky, Lance Pekus, JJ Woods, Grant McCartney and Jessie Graff. Team Akbar is Flip Rodriguez, Brent Steffensen, Jamie Rahn, Daniel Gil and Meagan Martin. They are facing off on the stage two and stage three courses from last year’s Vegas final and a side by side climb.
Joe Moravsky and Brent Steffensen are the first face off. Moravsky went the farthest in season 6 while Brent went the farthest in season 4. Joe is off to a fast start and hops up the salmon ladder rapidly. He’s done in 1:08:52 and is the first done at the #AllStarANW match up.
That was the fastest time on that course. He beat Elet hall’s best time by 43 seconds. He says he was in the zone and knew what needed to be done. He says he doesn’t think Brent can beat his time. Now it’s time for Brent’s run who needs to crank it out to beat that.
He’s off and running but gets slowed up on the ropes. He fell on the salmon ladder and the crowd is stunned. He was trying to go fast and just fell on an obstacle he knows well. That gives one point for Team Matt. Akbar makes a face at him.
Next is Jamie Rahn vs Lance Pekus. Jamie is up and his green hair is looking good. He makes it past the ropes by going slow and steady then faces the double salmon ladder. He transitions to the second ladder with ease. Matt and Akbar trash talk each other while he does his run.
Jamie fell on this course in roulette row. Now he faces the killer obstacle again. He gets stuck on the first wheel and he finally falls. Akbar is bummed. Next is Team Matt’s Lance Pekus who also fell on roulette row last year. He has a good pace through the course as he heads for the butterfly wall.
He struggles there then faces the roulette wheels. He did it! The cowboy faced it down. He throws up the window wall an slaps the buzzer to score a second point for Team Matt.
Next up is Grant McCartney vs Daniel Gil. Grant is off to a solid start and clears the ropes. He makes the ladder transition and keeps moving. Team Matt cheers him on as Grant moves on to the unstable bridge which he’s never faced before. He falls on the bridge to bridge transition.
Daniel Gil is moving fast and is done with the ladder and earns Team Akbar a point because he beat Grant’s time. He hasn’t faced the end of stage two yet and moves past the bridge to the butterfly wall. He beats that and moves on to roulette row where he fell in Vegas.
He gets hung between the wheels but then spins to the landing pad and slaps the buzzer past the window wall. That gives that heat to Team Akbar.
Miami pals Flip Rodriguez and JJ Woods face off tonight but these guys train together and see each other as brothers. These two are facing off on the stage three. JJ fell off on the floating boards, the third obstacle when he was struggling with grip and locking in his feet.
Now Flip is up and he’s never faced stage three and has to get past the door knob grasper to get the point and he needs to get there faster than 40 seconds. He works the door knobs well even though he’s never been on the obstacle. That gets Team Akbar a point and they’re tied at 2-2.
JJ hops onto the floating boards but he already earned the point, so he’s good no matter what happens. He clears it and the rest of Team Akbar cheers. Now he’s facing the ultimate cliffhanger. He makes it all the way to the transition on the last piece of the obstacle and tumbled into the water.
Next is Meagan Martin vs Jessie Graf. Rock climber and coach Meagan will go first. The wolfpack is there to cheer her on. She will also face stage three. She’s facing the row of doorknobs and her rock climbing skills are out in force. She lands the transition to move on to the third obstacle.
She’s on the floating walls and moving along. She lands the dismount with a flop and will now move to the ultimate cliffhanger obstacle. She fell on the transition to the lower handle but man did she kill it until that point. She outdid many obstacles that took out a lot of male warriors.
Hollywood stunt woman Jessie Graf is up next and she’s ready to face stage three. She has to beat 3:19 through the floating boards. Meagan is rooting for her too. Jessie makes it past the doorknobs fast and he a lot of time ahead but doesn’t have the grip string Meagan does.
She beats Meagan’s time by a full minute and scores another point for Team Matt so it’s now 3-2. She moves onto the ledge obstacle but falls on the upward transition that Meagan was able to surpass. Jessie did the floating boards better than any male competitor tonight too.
The final climb event is Lance Pekus vs Flip Rodriguez. They will climb side by side with no time limit and the first to the buzzer wins the next point. Flip Rodriguez shimmies up that rope at an insane pace and slaps the buzzer in just over 30 seconds. Team Akbar wins the round 5-3.
The giant peg board will be conquered by Brian Arnold, David Campbell, Jessie Graff and Ben Malick will face it. Ben is up first and he makes it almost all the way around. He was on segment 12 when the time ran out. Jessie is up next and she’s got a pegboard in her living room.
The ladies are cheering her on. She makes it through 10 segments before her 60 seconds run out. She did amazingly well. David Campbell is up next and the Godfather is moving fast and the 38 year-old is the oldest in the group. He even skipped over a second.
He’s on 12 and has time left and then moves back round to the number one spot and completes the wheel. Brian Arnold goes last and the wolfpack member and rock climber should do well at this. Brian boogies around the board and beats David by clearing 15 segments. WOW! That earns him a medal from Kristine.
Kevin Bull, Drew Dreschel, and Isaac Caldiero make the leaps between ledges and Meagan Martin is next. She nails it as easily as the guys do. The Super Sonic Self Grab was no problem for any of them so now the gap is increased to 10.5 feet.
Kevin Bull swings, leaps and nails it. Now it’s Drew Dreschel who also nails it. Isaac Caldiero nails it too like it was a leap of his front porch. Meagan is next – can she make it too? She almost makes it but it’s twice her height and she goes down. She grabbed the ledge but the momentum was too much.
Now it goes to 12 feet between them. It’s double the height of most of the guys. Kevin Bull is up first. He takes a tumble and couldn’t hold his grip. Now Drew Dreschel tries it and nails it. Wow. Now it’s Isaac Caldiero’s turn. He also clears it. Awesome.
Now they back it up to 13 feet and it’ll be Isaac Caldiero vs Drew Dreschel.
Drew is up first and will try to make the 13-foot gap. He landed it and Matt and Akbar call him a meta-human. He made such a big leap he almost face-planted on the second shelf. This skills competition is insane. Isaac tries to match his effort. He does it. They both did it!
Now they’re going to crank it to 14 feet which is the max that the obstacle can go for safety reasons. Drew Dreschel is up first and the crowd chants his name. Drew nails it and does a cool double-flip dismount. Isaac now makes his attempt and also nails it!
The two champions of this event go talk to Kristine and both get their medals. Isaac says he’s never done anything wider than 10 feet so he wanted him and Drew to push each other to their limits. They each put medals on the other.
Now four Ninjas will take on a massive four story salmon ladder. There are 35 rungs on it. Dustin McKinney is up first and the 5’2” Navy officer has a perfect record on the salmon ladder. He’s off to a fast start and makes two misplacements but gets back on track. He falls at 22.
Next is Kacy Caranzaro and we can’t wait to see what Mighty Casey can do. She clears five levels and keeps going. She gets hung at 9 but then keeps going and falls at 11. Next is Cowboy Ninja Lance Pekus. He speeds up and goes past 22 and keeps going. He falls at 28. Impressive.
Mike Bernardo is up next and has to get past 28. He’s a machine and is moving fast. He hits it and keeps moving. He makes all 35! Ryan Stratis and others are cheering as Mike dangles from one arm and fist pumps. He takes a celebratory dive into the water.
Kristine hands him the medal and he says the water is cold. He says he was glad to get the chance to do this after his performance in the last season. He says he wants to come back next year and compete again.
The skills test we don’t see live is a giant jump onto the net from a mini trampoline. Four competed and at 17 feet, Abel Gonzalez and Brent Steffensen fell short. JJ Woods nailed it and so did Nicolas Coolidge. When they added six more inches, both fell and Nicolas and JJ ended as co-champs.
The last of the skills challenges is a warped wall on steroids. They will start it at 16 feet and they get one shot each. If more than one makes it, they will raise it. Four are facing it. Jamie Rah is up first. He nails it with ease. Next is Alan Connealy and he does it too.
Flip Rodriguez runs and he gets it easily. Joe Moravsky also gets it – that’s four for four and now they stretch it up two feet to 18 feet. That’s four feet higher than the normal wall in ANW runs. Jamie makes it but it wasn’t as easy.
Alan Connealy is next and he can’t quite make it. Looks like he leaped too soon. Flip Rodriguez is next and he grabs it too. Now Joe Moravsky runs and barely grabs it with one hand but makes it too. Now they raise it another six inches. It’s 18.5 feet now.
Jamie runs it and he snags it with his fingertips. Now it’s Flip Rodriguez and he also gets a fingertip grip but does it. Joe Moravsky pulls off his shirt to get serious. He also nails it. They’re going to raise it again and it’s going up to 18 feet 9 inches.
Jamie runs and fails. He pounces in frustration as he slides back down. Flip Rodriguez and barely grabs it. He does it and is thrilled. The crowed and another warriors go wild. Joe Marovsky runs last. He nails it too. So Matt says they’re raising it to 19 feet as the sun rises over Las Vegas.
Joe Marovsky will run first and touches the ledge with his fingertips but then falls back and doesn’t make it. Flip Rodriguez runs last. He does it and that will make him the skills challenge champion for the ultimate warped wall challenge.
THE END!
