“I wasn’t supposed to come close to beating Cory.
Even on only one leg,Derrick Kosinskiis a force to be reckoned with onThe Challenge.
The three-time champion put up a hell of a fight before he went home, though.
Derrick Kosinski, ‘The Challenge’.MTV
Hebeat both Mark LongandHoracio Gutierrez in difficult eliminations, and competed in multiple challenges on an injured leg.
Despite only having one working leg, Derrick hopped his way into a nail-biter of a result.
MTV
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What was going on with Era 1?
‘The Challenge’.MTV
Why did you guys struggle so much this season?
DERRICK KOSINSKI:We definitely couldn’t figure out how to win together, for one way or another.
Too many cooks in the kitchen, I don’t know.
‘The Challenge’.MTV
We just weren’t that good together.
I think I would’ve won five or six eliminations, get the record in an individual season.
But I can’t speak for everybody, I can only speak for myself and my preparation.
“I trained for a month” that’s not going to work here.
Do you see Era 4?
Also, you have to take into account how old we are.
We have to do more than the youngsters.
We have to go above and beyond to meet them at their level.
What was the diagnosis for your leg?
How bad was it?
A blown out, torn ACL shredded, gone and torn meniscus.
And there was an LCL strain.
I’m trying to hide it.
So I knew that win or lose this elimination, I wasn’t going to continue much longer.
If I had won, maybe I would’ve been like, “I can’t continue.”
You saw a lot of raw emotions happen there in those final minutes of this episode.
I don’t think I was going to continue on much longer because I was scared.
If two or three of these guys land on me, if my knee just snaps?
Funny, I wasn’t scared to go into elimination with Cory though.
I just was like, “You want to f—ing fight?
Let’s fight.”
Had I had two working legs, I would’ve won.
But it is what it is, and I’m glad I came close.
You hit all the targets, and it just came down to time.
That’s impressive for doing it on just one leg against a competitor who is at his full potential!
Yeah, it was painful to not be told that I won.
It hurt, but what can you do?
It was the poker face from TJ for me.
Because he was like, “Derrick, you did it fast.”
And I was like, in my head, “F— yeah!”
And then he was like, “But Cory, you did it faster.”
After your elimination, what was the healing process like?
Those are the things that need to get fixed, surgically repaired.
Now, it’s been three months post-op and it’s been difficult.
It hasn’t been easy to do everything a dad should be able to do with a newborn.
But I think we’re doing a good job he’s a happy baby.
There’s no pity parties here.
Congratulations on that, as well as still having an impressive season regardless of injury.
Thank you so much for saying that.
The one thing that I did get out of the season is I got my 13th individual elimination win.
I thought I was cooking.
I beat Mark, I beat Horacio.
I felt fully confident that I was going to beat Cory on one leg.
And it did feel like I did my homework and I was ready to win the season.
But of course, God had other plans.
I wasn’t supposed to beat Cory.
I wasn’t supposed to come close to beating Cory.
I was trying to do the impossible, and I almost did.
It just sucked that I didn’t win.
Because had I won that third elimination, I would’ve felt like I won the season.
That was literally my last hurrah, I was literally playing on my last leg.
I had some good commentary there at the end.
I was pretty proud of myself with that, too.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Challenge: Battle of the Erasairs Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.
