What Didn’t Sit Right With Latest Eliminated Player

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Challenge: USA Season 2 Episode 3 “Civil War.”]

It was a short return to a version of The Challenge for one of the USA Season 2 players.

Paulie Calafiore, who was on the CBS show for Big Brother, has competed in three seasons of The Challenge already (Final Reckoning, War of the Worlds, and War of the Worlds 2), over on MTV. (But for USA, there were only six “vets”: Wes Bergmann, Johnny “Bananas” DeVenanzio, Tori Deal, Jonna Mannion, Amanda Garcia, and Cory Wharton.) And it was after only three episodes that Paulie was sent home, after facing off against teammate Bananas in an elimination that saw them stand on blocks of ice, throwing beanbags at targets to turn fire on under each other’s, and hold up their arms to keep a bucket of fish guts from falling.

Here, Paulie talks about returning to the competition, what didn’t quite sit right about his position on USA, and more.

Welcome back to The Challenge.

Pauli Calafiore: Thank you. I wish that my return lasted a little bit longer, but overall, I’m happy with how everything played out.

You said that you were in the best headspace you’ve ever been after going to therapy, but do you think you could have maintained that if you’d stayed and gotten deeper into the season?

Yeah, honestly, I think I would’ve been fine this season. Maybe I would’ve had a little bit of smack talk just as the game progresses. But as far as the blow ups and everything like that, I was truly in the headspace that I was when I had been operating at my most efficient as a competitor, as an athlete, which was the version of me you saw in Final Reckoning, where I talk a little smack, I say I’m going to stir the pot, I’m going to do whatever. The blowups never really happened in sports because you could get ejected from the game. There were times of my life where I would get ejected from the games because of those blowups, but once I finally learned that sweet spot of everything, I was performing at my best and I was competing at my best.

That’s the headspace that I came into this season with because I was like, I can’t keep falling short, second place, third place, dominating seasons and coming up short. I’m really chasing after this championship with every ounce of my being. And in order to get that, I felt as though I needed to have a champion’s mentality. Looking back on previous mentalities that I’ve had in athletics and The Challenge, I was able to identify what worked with me as an athlete and why even though it was working for me in an odd way on The Challenge, it didn’t completely work for me. So to me, this season was all about eye on the prize and end goal. Do whatever it takes. Do not explode. Do not blow up. Do not do any of those things that are going to stop you from winning that championship.

Where do you fall on everyone going after the vets, considering you weren’t one of them, but you do have experience? How do you think the vets versus everyone is playing out this early?

When I met a lot of these rookies at the airport and even in the house, the only thing that they would talk to me about is how much they loved me on War of the Worlds and War of the Worlds 2. I think they came in almost with that mindset of “it’s our time now,” just because I had that mindset when I came in, and I still preach to this day — even as I become a more seasoned vet — I will never sit there. I never ever, ever, ever, ever want to enter a season with rookies who don’t want to play the game. I find that so boring when rookies come in and just want to cater to the vets and the vets expect to be catered to, then they just pick off the rookies until it’s down to the nucleus of people that are all working together, and then they go after each other.

I also was in this weird middle space where it’s like, if all the vets go, I’m next in line. And then there was also the other side where I’m like, alright, how do I play into this side too? I was actually in a pretty good position in the middle, which is why I wasn’t trying to do too much too soon.

But listen, I love when the rookies come in like that. As much as the Johnnys and the Weses and the Toris want to complain about that, I’ll never complain about that. Take that as a badge of honor if people are banding together to get you out. I love that. I love the fact that people wanted to put me against Johnny, because they were like, we want him gone. We need somebody good to take him out — Paulie. And I’m like, OK, it is what it is. If I want to keep coming back and there’s going to be new people, I need to accept the fact that that’s what it’s going to be and I need to figure out the game and adapt how to go against a very well-organized rookie class. Because they were very well-organized.

Talk about that elimination. If it had come down to just standing on that ice and you didn’t have to worry about the fire underneath, do you think you could have outlasted Bananas?

I think so. I think it would’ve been another very long night, and I think that was considered in the creation of that game. Now, I don’t know when they put these together — I know it’s a long time before we even get there — but I think they factored in, what if two really stubborn people are playing this game? It just so happened that that happened. I’m sure that they’re thanking themselves for adding the beanbag and the ice melting aspect because I think Johnny and I would’ve went hours keeping our arms up.

I do think that I would’ve had it in him. He’s done this before, but it was four or five years ago when he did that similar elimination. I was with him every day and his body was hurting. It was extremely cold at that point in time. He was a little bit down from getting targeted super heavy, super early, and I was watching him across there, and he was moving, and I could tell his shoulder was hurting, I could tell his back was hurting. I wasn’t feeling anything. So I’m very sad that there was the ice aspect to it. But listen, that’s the game and you just got to roll with it. I’d never played any throwing sports. So I’m kind of proud of myself that I hit the target as much as I did.

Jonne Roriz, courtesy of Paramount

Things between you and Bananas seem to be better by the time you left. Is that still the case?

Yeah, we’re still good. Hell froze over. I did his podcast. We’ve hung out a couple times. I said to him, “Listen, dude, would you rather me come in, lie to your face, and say that I’m not coming after you, say that I don’t want to be considered a good challenge and just ride your coattails and then stab you in the back like a weasel? I came in, I said right to your face, ‘Hey, I’m here to play. I’m coming after the big guns, and if you guys don’t want to pass me the torch, I’m going to try and yank it from your hands.’”

But then there’s also that other side where I feel like the OGs are like the gatekeepers to the show, and I feel as though they’ve put so much time into the show over all these years and they’re legendary and they’ve really pushed the show forward in their time here that I understand it from their perspective, where they want to make sure that somebody coming in is going to carry the show forward, push the needle forward if there ever comes a time when they’re not there.

I think we got on those terms where he’s like, “Listen, man, I just wanted to make sure that you were the real deal, so I wasn’t going to give it to you easy. If you’re going to be somebody that is going to stay here, I want to make sure that you’re going to do us justice if we’re ever not here.” We had those conversations in the house, and that’s when it hit me he was almost just making sure that I wasn’t here for the wrong reasons and I actually had passion for the show and the game. Once I looked at it from that perspective, I was able to be like, alright, we both came at each other’s throats, but it was all for reasons that we can justify.

If you’d won, would you have defected or stayed on Red?

Oh, I was defecting 100 percent. I was miserable losing. I’ve never lost that many things in a row. It was getting frustrating. The team dynamic, all great people, but from a team standpoint, just too many people trying to be chefs in the kitchen. Every daily, Johnny and I would lay out a game plan and people would want to try and chime in their two cents, and then they would come back and try and question the game plan. There were points where Johnny and I would sit there and be like, “Between the two of us, we have more daily wins than any of you and any of you will even come close to. All of you combined will not even come close to one of us, let alone both of us.” That kind of stuff can’t happen in a team setting.

On War of the Worlds 2, our team won 11 dailies because we had a few people come up with the game plan. Everybody else [followed it]. That’s how it has to be in a team setting. So I was ready to get off that team and get to a team that kind of had that dynamic.

I was going to go to Blue, 100 percent. They got it. They didn’t have too many chefs in the kitchen. They had one or two voices, and that would’ve been that. I was looking for a team because if you didn’t win, you have to dress up every single time for the elimination. I was just tired of it. I was tired of packing my bags, every single elimination, dressing up, standing there in the freezing cold. I wanted to put on my warm clothes, and I wanted to have some semblance of safety. I feel like Blue would’ve been that for me. I think I could have been an asset.

Would you do another season of The Challenge: USA?

Listen, I’m Challenge bred at this point. When it said my name and Big Brother, that doesn’t really feel right to me. I did one season of Big Brother. I did three seasons of The Challenge. I think most people would argue that I’m more Challenger than Big Brother with how I play the game. The style of how I play the game, the look and feel of it, is The Challenge. I’m Challenge born and bred. Whether it’s Challenge USA, whether it’s The Challenge on MTV [or] on Paramount+, whatever the future of The Challenge holds, wherever it goes, wherever it molds to, I’m The Challenge and I’m here for it.

Is there anything that didn’t air that you think fans should know about?

No, I think that everything that airs has its reasons. I learned that aspect of myself, of what I wanted to correct. I’m past the point of trying to explain what aired versus what didn’t air. It’s all about what’s going to be great for the show, what viewers are going to buy into.

The only thing that I wish was shown, but I understand that it can’t be, is when I did get eliminated, everybody ran down from the sand dunes and gave me a group hug, and I started crying right then and there. That was really cool because that was very new for me. I guess A, I’ve never been eliminated that early, but B, if I ever was eliminated, I don’t really think people would be sad. I think people would’ve been cheering. Johnny could have gloated, but he didn’t. He hugged me. He told me I’m a hell of a competitor. Those are the full circle moments that I wish everybody gets to experience in their lifetime.

The Challenge: USA, Thursdays, 10/9c, CBS (and Sundays, 9/8c, through August 27)