Tonight on NBC their obstacle course competition American Ninja Warrior returns with an all-new Wednesday, May 30, 2018, episode and we have your American Ninja Warrior recap below! On tonight’s “Dallas City Qualifiers,” season 10 episode 1 as per the NBC synopsis, “Season 10 opens in Dallas, Texas, with a qualifying round that features six obstacles, including the new 18-foot “Mega Warped Wall,” which, if conquered, offers a chance to win $10,000. Notable Dallas ninjas include Daniel Gil, Brent Steffensen and Barclay Stockett.”
Tonight’s episode looks like it is going to be a great season 10 episode 1, so be sure to tune in for our coverage of NBC’s American Ninja Warrior at 8 PM – 10 PM ET! While you wait for our American Ninja Warrior recap make sure to check out all our American Ninja Warrior news, spoilers, recaps & more!
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On tonight’s season premiere “American Ninja Warrior”, new faces from all around the country finally got their shot at winning the title as well as that million dollar prize.
The show likes to up the ante season and they did that again this year when they introduced several new obstacles. The obstacles are as follows: Floating Steps. Catch & Release, Bouncing Spider, Tuning Forks, Crank It Up, and Warped Wall with something just a little different about this year’s Warped Wall. This year it was eighteen feet high and so everyone called it the Mega-Warped Wall because it seemed like such a colossal thing that no one could surmount however there were plenty that gave tonight their all. The first contestant up was someone that caught the crowd by surprise. Father Gadberry was actually a Catholic priest and he used the focus he had gained during his priesthood training for American Ninja Warrior.
The Father liked to say that he received his strength from Jesus and that had seemed so at first. He speeds his way through the first two obstacles and it had looked like he would have done the same to the Bouncing Spider until the worst happened. He slipped and fell into the water. The footage showed that Father Gadberry had lost his footing which was why he fell and so hopefully he learns from this next time he returned for the title. Now, there were a few people during the break that all tried and failed to make it through the obstacles yet many were hopeful about Dr. Favia Dubyk. The young woman had was both a cancer survivor and a cancer doctor. She was diagnosed in Med School with her own doctors saying she wouldn’t make it and surprisingly she beat the odds.
Favia had powered through back then and she tried to do that again with this competition. She had her family supporting her in the audience and a warrior scream she used whenever she faced a new challenge, but unfortunately, she fell on ‘Catch & Release’. It might not have been how she wished to end things only Favia will be remembered for that scream alone. The next contestant on the show was Andrew Naquin. He came from a small town in Louisiana and, while he didn’t have the largest crowd of supporters, he made sure his pet bullfrogs Dumbledore and Frodo were there to see how he did. Andrew had a strong start and was doing really well until he too fell victim to the Bouncing Spider.
Andrew’s knees buckled from underneath him on a crucial jump and he literally hit a wall. It was so loud that it was a hard hit and so he too lost out on the title. There were several other people that tried including a flag-runner, a photographer, one poor guy that never made it past the first obstacle and none of them had made it past the Tuning Forks. The crowd was hoping that Karen Wiltin would be different. She was a thirty-nine-year-old rookie having only been in training for the past seven months and she became interested in ANW after she started taking her two young daughters to the Ninja gym. And so many were expecting she wouldn’t do as well as she did though she sailed through the beginning obstacles and made it the farthest than anyone – she just didn’t complete the run.
Karen fell on Crank It Up. She was doing well until then and with such good timing that she still earned a spot in the City Finals, however, this year the competition was opened to a much wider selection. American Ninja Warrior decided to lower the age limit to the nineteen and so the first nineteen-year-old by the name of Mathis Owhadi went up next. Nicknamed “the Kid”, this full-time college student has been training for the show for the past nine years and had always been ranked as one of the ones to watch. So expectations were high! He raced through the first through courses in under thirty seconds and he managed to be the first to surpass Crank It Up. And given the option between the smaller Warped Wall or the Mega one, he chose to go after the Mega.
Mathis managed to almost make it, too! He touched the top of the Mega Warped Wall and just slipped. His grip hadn’t been tight enough and so he missed his chances at the Mega. Mathis still got to go after the smaller wall and he made that one thereby becoming the first person tonight to finish the course. He later said he won thanks to all the support he had over the years and they were clearly very proud of him. Especially as he was the first teenager to compete and managed to complete the entire course in two minutes and thirty seconds. With another commercial break, there was a quick recap of those that tried and those that failed at completing the course until eventually, the show refocused back on Quest O’Neal.
Quest had had it hard growing up with a mother addicted to drugs and having to go without food so that her siblings could eat, but she found basketball and that gave her a newfound confidence in herself. She came to this show with her parents who both turned their lives around and her girlfriend Alicia. They were all happy to see her race through the obstacles and even the crowd began chanting her name by the time she made it to the Crank It Up. She put everything she had into it and sadly her fingers slipped on the obstacle before she could even make it to the Warped Wall, so her timing as well as how far she made it could mean she earned herself a place in the City Finals. The next contestant up was Abel Gonzalez.
Abel was a five-time veteran of American Ninja Warrior. He first appeared as a walk-on back in 2014 and since then he’s truly become a success story. Abel opened a Ninja Gym and travels the country giving inspirational speeches about his experience on the show yet through all of that this was still the first year his dad was going to be there. His dad battled alcoholism and tried to kill himself which meant every day that he was around was a blessing. Abel was glad his father was there because he managed to hold on despite the near-misses. He almost fell several times and hadn’t made the eighteen-foot wall liked he wanted. And so he became the second person to complete the course on the small wall.
The next contestant was also a veteran of ANW. Brent Steffensen had crashed out on the City Finals last year and so he was more determined than ever to ensure that didn’t happen again. Brent tried to do things correctly and fast because he knew that timing could mean everything for him in the competition. He was doing great and looked like he could make it to the end until he fell on the Tuning Forks. It was the same obstacle that had knocked out a friend and so he had been apprehensive about it from even before. And sadly that hadn’t changed the outcome. Brett was out and the next contestant to try their turn at the obstacles was Victor Gonzalez. He had some swag and was known as Goofy.
Goofy was a rookie and had been doing well in almost everything besides timing. He was taking a lot of time to make it through the obstacles and when he slipped on Crank It Up it was unclear if he would make it to the City Finals. The next contestant tonight had been Chris Cambre and he believed he had a secret weapon. He said he had his shrimp boots. Chris does everything even training in his shrimp boots and he believed they would be an asset because they had great grip and were also lightweight. They weren’t dragging down Chris and more than once Chris showed how well they helped him make a good time across the course. The only time they hadn’t helped him had been on Crank It Up.
Crank It Up was all about upper body strength and so it hadn’t mattered what footwear Chris was wearing. When he ran out of fumes in the middle of the obstacle, he fell and there was nothing his shrimp boots could do to save him from the fall. It was also a little unclear if he would make it into the City Finals because of all that time he spent on that last obstacle and so he too would have to wait until the end to see where he ranked. The others that followed Chris didn’t have their own secret weapons through all the same familiar faces like Thomas Stillings managed to complete the course and he, in turn, was followed by a fan favorite Barclay Stockett. She had the crowd chanting her name before she started the course and she made great timing.
Barclay was expected to be one of the top performers and in an upsetting loss, she fell on the Tuning Forks. It had been a hard hit for her because she hadn’t been sure if she could continue on in the competition and so there had been a few tears while Kristine Leahy did her best to cheer her up. Up next was one of the oldest qualifying members in the competition. His name was John Stewart and at fifty-six he preferred to say fifty-six young rather than old and this year he managed to triumph over what knocked him out last year. He made it past the Bouncing Spider and past the Tuning Forks before he eventually came against something he was familiar with. He was both a baker and avid rock climber and still, he struggled with Crank It Up.
John was a breathing quite heavily by then and so he didn’t bother trying to go after the Mega. He went for the fourteen and a half Warped Wall and became the oldest man to complete the course. John was even moving faster this year so he beat his own record for when he accomplished the Warped Wall before. There were several more Ninjas that made it through during the commercial break and one even came in the fastest time, however, the real highlight of the night had been Daniel Gil. He and his family had needed to be rescued after Hurricane Harvey when the flood waters rose so high that they came into the Gil family home. And so tonight, Daniel wanted to show everyone especially his hometown what Houston Strong looked like.
Daniel races through the obstacles and the only time he slowed was when it came time to try his hand at the Mega Warped Wall. He thought about and then managed to do the impossible by being the first person to ever make it up that eighteen-foot mountain. By doing so, he automatically won the bonus of ten thousand dollars and so Daniel Gil was the one to beat on this season of American Ninja Warrior.
THE END!