"RIGGED"— The Challenge 40 fans upset by Horacio's elimination

The Challenge: Battle of the Eras or season 40 aired its latest episode on Wednesday, September 4, 2024. The segment saw the remaining cast members compete in another daily challenge. After the trivia challenge, Era 2 won and Eras 1 and 4 went into elimination.

Horacio, who directly went into elimination after losing the Daily Challenge, picked Derrick to compete against from Era 1, and was eliminated. The task ended with both the cast members placing the last jacks on the block neck-to-neck, leaving the season 40 contestants confused about who went home. TJ Lavin revealed that Horacio lost the challenge and was eliminated with Aneesa Ferreira.

Chiming on the neck-to-neck competition between Derrick and Horacio, fans felt that Horacio's elimination was unfair as they believed the latter won. One person wrote on X:

"What the hell @TheChallenge? That men’s elimination was RIGGED and it’s so blatant. There was an empty hole on Derrick’s board when Horacio put his last jack on. And what’s with the delayed announcement of the winner? We are NOT stupid!"

"How did Derrick win? When they rang the buzzard and Derrick dropped his ball he was missing a peg. When Derrick and Horacio shook hands after the whistle blew that same peg was still missing?? @MTV @TheChallenge care to explain?" a fan commented.

"How did Derrick win with one jack missing on the top right?? He dropped the ball at the end and one jack was missing," a tweet read.

The Challenge season 40 fans stated that Derrick was missing a peg:

"It was a peg he knocked over when he dove for the ball. Rules stated what ever pegs you catch with the ball count. So that missing top right piece counted," a person wrote.

"Also, horacio's ball got stuck and production couldnt get it out while derrick had lots of time to get his jacks. They should have stopped the game since he couldn't do anything to get his ball out," a fan commented.

"Roll the tapes because ain’t no way Horacio lost that," a tweet read.

The Challenge season 40 fans called Horacio "one of the best competitors" in the show's history:

"Upset, Horacio is one of the best competitors we've had on the challenge, call him boring, idc he is a loyal person in the game and seeing him "lose" to a rigged game is infuriating," a person wrote.

"Horacio is such a competitor but also a down to earth, genuine person. We will see you again!" a tweet read.

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Horacio gets eliminated in The Challenge: Battle of the Eras episode 4

In The Challenge Battle of the Eras episode 4, Horacio and Jenny went up against Derrick and Aneesa in 'Pick It Up'. As part of the task, they had to shoot a ball into an overhead track, race across to collect jacks, and catch the ball at the other end. They then had to place the jacks on a board. The first person to place all 40 jacks on the wall would win.

In the men's elimination competition, while Derrick was in the lead, at one point, he slammed into the wall and several jacks fell out of his board. This gave The Challenge season 40 star Horacio enough time to catch up.

By the end, the competition was so close that the contestants didn't know who won. TJ informed the cast that Horacio lost and was eliminated from Battles of the Eras.

Nurys Mateo, Horacio's girlfriend, who was eliminated from The Challenge in episode 2, took to X after the episode aired to criticize production. She claimed production helped Derrick "pick up his fallen pegs" which was against the rules.

Fans of the MTV show were upset by the elimination and voiced their opinion online and praised Horacio for his performance.

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The Challenge season 40 airs episodes weekly on Wednesdays at 8 pm ET on MTV.