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Los Angeles Review - ANW11 City Review

ANW11 kicked things off in this city, and it was a mixed bag, with qualifiers and finals.

But first, a look at the qualifiers. It was a disaster off screen, but a gem on screen.

Obstacle Review

Shrinking Steps: For the first obstacle, this did a good job making sure people go fast (which could sum up the entire course), because if you try to go slow, you will most likely fall, so you need to get your butt going if you want to survive to see another course.

Completions: 70/96

Walk The Plank: This second obstacle was an awesome idea. Having an obstacle that provides both a balance challenge and a grip challenge is quite creative. And it succeeded in it's plan to knock out ninjas left and right. My only problem is that it seems to favor taller people, even though it's not that much of a difference.

Completions: 39/70

Spring Forward: ANW is getting quite creative with these obstacle decisions. Spring Forward is a cool challenge that makes ninjas go in all different directions and makes it so that it's no walk in the park. I was sad that only 39 people attempted it, because it didn't get to see it's true potential.

Completions: 26/39

Diamond Dash: This obstacle, at first I didn't really like, but now I think I like it more than in ANW10. It is a quite easy obstacle breaking it down, but one misstep and you'll be sent into the water. So yeah.

Completions: 23/26

Spin Hopper: One of my favorites has returned for a second season. The Spin Hopper's challenging pill shaped handles look to be easy, but the catch makes it so much better. There really isn't much to say about this.

Completions: 16/23

Mega Wall: I'm skipping over the regular wall to talk about one of the new rules of the Mega Wall. You get three tries on the Mega Wall, but you cannot go back the regular Wall. This is much more risky than last year, because failing the Mega Wall last year still allowed for you to get up the regular one.

Completions: 11/16

Shocks and Surprises

Shocks: The only ones I can think are is Adam Rayl failing the Spin Hopper, and Tiana Webberley failing Walk The Plank.

Surprises: How the third obstacle became the cutoff, which we can blame on the rain.

David Campbell being in the top 2, and making it to the Power Tower.

Power Tower

This thing is massive, 40 feet tall, and a whole lot of fun to look at. You start off by climbing up stairs, then grab their way through a bar, followed by sliding down and running through a thin pole. From there, they must go back up, followed by 8-foot laches, finished by dismounting and hitting a buzzer.

The prize for winning is the Speed Pass, which gives you a free trip to Vegas. And l like this idea, because the qualifiers are the starter competitions, so spicing it up is 100% needed.

Watching this match, both of them were going fast, but David Campbell lost his chance a the laches by hesitating, so, as a result, Guerard won.

Cutoff for Women

The one thing that bothered me is how Emmi Rose, Anna Shumaker, and Tiana Webberley still advanced. I can understand the other two, but come on now. If a woman fails the third or second obstacle, they should not make it into the city finals.

City Finals

City finals, I was a lot more mixed on. I liked it, and hated it at the same time.

Obstacle Review

The Hinge: Now I liked this obstacle from the start. An interesting combination of the Spider Flip and the I-Beam Gap's upper part. It was an obstacle that I found great from the start.

Leaps of Faith: As this obstacle puts it. This is just a lame launch off obstacle, and the only things that will make you go down are the blind grab and you being tired. I just never really enjoyed looking at this obstacle.

Spider Trap: Knockoff Spider Climb, except even easier, unless there is rain.

Ironic Coincidences

Rebekah Bonilla, Emmi Rose, and Samantha Bush, were all the only three women to pass Walk The Plank, but all of them crashed into the water there, and were the only ones to do so, might I add, with Tiana and Anna passing it with flying colors.

Also, except for Anna Shumaker, everyone who got a full run made it to the backhalf, which really annoyed me because there was some fails they could have shown, like Thomas Kofron, or Rebekah Bonilla. And also Akbar said in the middle of David Alvarez' fast-forward run that "every second is a second Wallyssa sees her older brother", which made me laugh because you digested him.

Editing Problems

One of the issues I had with this is that all-stars were fast-forwarded. Like David Campbell, or Adam Rayl. Verdale Benson and Jonah Bonner should have been replaced with those two.

Top 12 Rule

This lovely (It's not) rule cuts down the group to the 12 non-Speed Pass winners, and adds two women. You already know I hate the women's rule, and the top 12 I don't like either, as it means there will only be, at max 90 people, and at least 72

Full review:

Qualifiers: 9/10

Finals: 6/10

Let me know what you think.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of American Ninja Warrior Nation's writers or editors, or of NBC.

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