Tori Deal and Devin Walker are officially Challenge champions after winning The Challenge: Ride Or Dies. During part three of the finale, Tori and Devin beat Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio and Nany Gonzalez, who came in second place, as well as Jordan Wiseley and Aneesa Ferreira, who came in third. Tori and Devin dominated most of the 100 hour final. However, their big leads during most of the competition didn’t end up mattering, as the clock was reset with each segment of the race.
“That was a double-edged sword,” Devin admitted to HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY. “Depending on your mindset, you could be a little salty that you won one day by three hours, but then you only get a 90 second head start the next day. That’s if you choose to be a pessimist. But Tori and myself happen to be glass half-full people. To me, it was relieving in a sense that if there does happen to be an event that isn’t in our wheelhouse, we’re not out of the race. So it was just that security, in combination with dominating all the checkpoints. I think we won 11 of 12. I was like, you know what, don’t even give us a lead! You want us to beat them in everything straight up? Sure thing! So it was annoying for 30 seconds until I remembered that we were never out of the race, so it was actually a huge benefit.”
See more from our interview with Tori and Devin below:
On how the final compared to others they’ve run in the past: (DEVIN) – I think it was the most difficult that I’ve been part of. It was definitely the most mentally grueling. The first day was very difficult. We saw Nany injure her knee, Olivia [Kasier] legitimately almost died, Aneesa twists her ankle. That’s all inside the first 18 hours of this final. It was a lot. One of the things that we always came back to as a duo is that in the moments of panic and exhaustion, pay attention to the details. Keep your mind on the race. We were able to do that.
On the hardest part of the final: (TORI) – For me, it was the mental stress of what’s coming next. We’ve been tested. We know our bodies can do it and we know we’re capable. But the thing that really made this difficult in a 100 hour final — and what, I think, is not portrayed accurately on TV — is that the off-time was a lot of, ‘What’s coming next? How am I going to do this?’ It’s just a lot of anxiety and stress and pressure. So just getting through that when you’re sweaty in your tent after not showering every single night, that was just as difficult as it was to physically do the competition, at least for me.
(DEVIN) – That’s a really good point. The anticipation of the next chapter is almost as difficult, or honestly harder, often, than what the next chapter ends up being. I want people to think about this in terms of their own job. If your boss came in and said, ‘Your final review is coming up and you need to be ready at ANY MOMENT. I’m going to literally knock on your door n matter where you are and you’re going to have to do it at that moment.’ So one of the things we deal with is that uncertainty and always having to be ON. It’s literally just TJ [Lavin] rolling up on an ATV and saying, ‘Put your shoes on, we’re leaving right now.’ That’s actually how it is. You have to be ready at all points and that’s very difficult. Also, drinking the fish guts was not fun.
On what we didn’t see in the final: (TORI) – The first day was a lot of running. We probably did, like, a half marathon. After that, I don’t even know how much we ended up doing in total. You would basically be doing something all day. There were actually two checkpoints that they cut out that were very interesting. You had to balance in a picture frame for a long period of time and another one where you had to hold up a block for a really long time.
In the off-time, once we got to camp, we knew we were going to bed, but in the morning, we’d wake up because there were these treacherous parakeets that would start screaming at 6:00 a.m. Then you’d see production cars show up an hour after that, and then the anxiety really starts to kick in. Sometimes we’d have to sit there for a few more hours and other times we’d be up and out. It was really all over the place.
On why they shared the money with the other 3 final teams: (TORI) – We really just banked on our friendships this whole game. We’ve played this game so much and with so many people that we know and that carried us really far. Ultimately that led to why we shared the money at the end. You don’t succeed if you don’t work with people.
A lot of people don’t realize that that final elimination ended up being 5-6 hours long. By the time we were in the chain room, Nany and Bananas were still outside working on their puzzle, and we realized we were at least an hour in front of them. There wasn’t a way for them to really catch up. So in that room it’s kind of hitting me. I’m like…this is about to happen. I look at Devin and I’m like, ‘So are we going to split the money?’ and he’s like ‘This is not the time!’ So we shut it down. But then two seconds after we pulled the lever and hugged and celebrated, that was the next conversation. There is a sense of gratitude of winning around so many people who had an incredible season. These are people who are incredible, and we had to win in front of them. Imagine the whole bus ride back if we were the only ones in a good mood? We won $50,000 last season because Kaycee [Clark] and CT [Tamburello] split it, we know how that felt. It felt f***ing great. So why not continue that? Devin and I both agreed on that equally.
(DEIVN) – I also want to add that I asked TJ if I could give Johnny’s $38,000 to Sarah [Rice] and he said no!
On the importance of their political game: (DEVIN) – There’s no way you get through this game on your own. Some people think that they can and they don’t value the importance of relationships and honesty. I can assure everybody that I played this game with that I had my full focus on keeping them in the game unless it was one of them against the other and I had to make a strategic move based on that. Or if it was me or them. That’s just always the way both of us have played the game. We managed to stay out of elimination, not because we were lying or doing anything like that, but because we aligned ourselves with the best pairs. When you run down the list of pairs who won daily challenges, they were all the best pairs. The pairs that weren’t winning, we didn’t have to worry that we weren’t working with them. We aligned ourselves, as a strong team, with the other strong teams, who also happened to be our friends because we’ve played with them before.
On whether they’ll return after winning: (TORI) – To be continued…we’ll see. I mean…probably..but we’ll see.
(DEVIN) – I’m not going to even flex, I only have 7 to go now until I’m the G.O.A.T! I’m just putting some tallies in this thing! In all seriousness, though, it will be a heavy decision just because this is something I’ve wanted for so long and it does really complete a piece of my puzzle. This is also out of both of our hands, we don’t do the casting. But if given the opportunity to play again, I will very likely play again and very likely win again.