Luis Colon Says He's "Disappointed" in Dusty's Actions on 'The Challenge: USA' Season 2
The Challenge: USA season 2 is here! Every week, Parade.com will speak with the CBS reality alumni who were eliminated from the all-star competition.
As Luis Colon could tell you, The Amazing Race is all about survival. Success is secondary; all that matters is staying out of elimination. And unfortunately for the TAR finalist, his time on The Challenge: USA season 2 put him right back in that mindset. His back was against the wall from the first minute, as the last overall draft pick who was then immediately put into elimination at the first opportunity. Luckily for the Miami firefighter, he avoided the smoke when the Hopper had him avoid the arena. As a new CBS alumni alliance rose squarely aimed at the veterans, Luis felt his requisite time in the spotlight as a rookie was over. But leave it to "Team Red Flags" to throw a wrench into the works.
After being helped to their first win by the blue team, red focused solely on the green team. The deliberation descended into absolute chaos, with the "Secret Garden" women's alliance pushing for vet Wes Bergmann, while Josh Martinez stumped for Luis both to protect the vets and to get revenge for Luis trying to put him in last episode. In the end, it came down to fellow Amazing Racer Dusty Harris, who ended up sending Luis into elimination by his own inaction. Luis got put up against fellow rookie Chris Underwood in a physical matchup. And despite a tough battle, he got the evil eye torn from his grasp (though he certainly had one for some remaining cast members).
Now out of the game, Parade.com speaks with Luis about the unseen moments from his elimination with Chris, his reaction to Josh and Dusty's actions in sending him in, and an alliance that informed every decision he made strategically.
Related: Everything to Know About The Challenge: USA Season 2
Hey, Luis! How are things going?
It's all good. Life is good no matter what, man. I don't care if I got my ass kicked in the sand. It's all good. I'm happy, man. I got put on the show The Challenge, a show that I used to watch when I was in high school. Dude, I remember watching Bananas and Wes. I stopped watching it for a while. And then I meet Josh at an event before my season aired. And he's like, "I won Big Brother. I'm on The Challenge now." And I'm like, "That show's still going on?"
[Laughs.] So you're one of those, "That show's still on?" guys, after competing on a show that many people have said that about?
[Laughs.] Yeah, that's still going on strong. But The Challenge is way more popular than The Amazing Race. But anyway, I was ready to do a USA season one, Mike. I was like, "Oh, all right. That's more of my style. Everybody's a rookie. Everybody's from CBS. And then they bring in these juggernauts from MTV." And I'm just like, "What did I get myself into?" But it was fun, man. It was fun. It was cool.
Well, I want to start with where it ended. The way they usually do these eliminations, I have to imagine you didn't just do one round with Chris. What happened that we didn't see?
Ding, ding ding! You're correct. There was not just one round. It was a three-round match. And it went three rounds. So I actually got the first point. But the first point was easier for me because the Evil Eye was hanging in the middle of the ring. And we're standing on opposite sides. So the first round, we had to run to the center, grab it, and then reach outside the ring to score the point. So here I had my advantage of speed.
So T.J. blows the horn, I run to the middle, I grab the Evil Eye before Chris could grab it. And he was gonna reach for me, and I did like a spin move. And then he kind of bounced off me. And I was able to score the first point rather quickly. I was shocked they didn't show that, man! And then Chris came back and just ended it. The second and third rounds, we start from the center, like what you saw on TV. And, and Chris is just a badass, dude, he came back and scored the last two points on me. I was very disappointed when they didn't show the whole match, the whole elimination. It was such a great elimination and lasted a while.
To be fair, there was a lot to get into from the episode. I want to talk about the red deliberation from a couple of angles. For many reasons, you were surprised when you saw your ball get picked. Let's start with the Josh angle first, because you mentioned earlier how you had a relationship going in. But he was stumping to put you in not only to protect Wes, but because you had mentioned his name before. What was your reaction to that?
When I saw my ball, I was very shocked, Mike. I thought I had numbers. The three girls, I thought I'd make good relationships with, and then I had Dusty. And in there, I knew Josh was coming after me. Josh is good at this game. He finds out who votes for him. He gets his way. And I don't hate Josh for that at all. There's a long story of me and Josh in the beginning because we're both guys from Miami. And I tried to work with him from the beginning. He didn't want to work with me. I picked a side I'm not just going to be here and waiting for you to help me out like I'm some little puppy or something. No, I pick a side. I'm gonna go ahead and go against you. And he came against me. But he won. He won at the end of the day, which I'm not mad about.
What about the Dusty side of things? You two were the only two Amazing Race alumni on the season, and while he didn't vote you in, his throwing away his vote certainly helped send you in.
The Dusty part I am disappointed with 100%. I would have flipped a table for Dusty in that elimination. I would have done whatever it took to keep us safe, to keep him safe. I feel like, at the end of the day, as you see, he was aligning himself more with these vets. And I was not. The vets came at me early. I tried to work with Josh, so I picked the side, and he didn't really communicate that with me. And I did not find that out until later, pretty much until my name was called in, that he didn't want to put Wes's name in. And by that, I get put in. He could have saved me and Desi. But he chose not to do it; he chose to play his game. And what else can I do?
What was the conversation like after the vote where you asked him about what happened during deliberation?
We're at the kitchen table. And I ask Dusty, "What happened?" And he said, "Hey, man, I tried to save you." And then Chanelle was sitting on the other side of the table. And she completely grilled Dusty. She's like, "That's bullshit, Dusty. You did not try to save him. We had a chance to save him. And you didn't do your job." And she completely gave it to Dusty while we were sitting there at the kitchen table. And I was shocked and in disbelief. I pulled Dusty to the side; he told me, "Hey, look, man, I tried. Please don't believe her. I tried. I tried." And, obviously, we see the truth come out. And everybody in the house knows how much I was protecting Dusty. It's sad. It's sad because I told him everything. He was my number one in the house. But I guess he didn't feel the same way.
You spoke about some of your relationships in the house. I would love to hear more about that. I know you said you were against the vets, but were you a part of this "Secret Garden" alliance with some of the CBS women?
My alliance is the Alyssa L. alliance. Whatever she told me to do, I will do. [Laughs.] I had no idea that was the game. The Secret Garden was a very secret name. If Alyssa L. would have told me, "Luis, go jump off the roof of the house right now," I would have done it. Whatever you got to do, girl! That girl saved me the second time we didn't win. And she had she really had my back. She was very emotional when my name got called the first time, and I trusted that girl with everything. So my game plan was to do whatever Alyssa L. told me to do.
Let's talk about the dynamic of green. Clearly, there was a lot of duplicity happening in that meeting, with Desi telling everyone to vote in Cassidy, when really she was plotting behind Amanda and Wes's back to send them in. What was happening there?
It was so funny, because the episode before, Amanda voted for Monte. There were more green votes and red votes. And we knew that was Amanda. And we had a team meeting; Wes was trying to get everybody together. And he was just like, "Hey, guys. Look, we all saw the numbers. I suggest we just forget about it. I suggest we call a mulligan and just don't let it affect our next play." And we're all just like, "That's not gonna happen." Wes was just trying to save Amanda's ass because Amanda voted for Monte.
So did we plan ahead of time to vote for Amanda? No. But once we saw Desi go in, and Amanda sucked three out of the four challenges. [Laughsi] I love Amanda; she and I got kicked out at the same time. But I told her, "Amanda, dude. How are you going to do that to us? The Green Team had your back. You voted for Monte, and you suck at challenges. So, of course, we're gonna put you in!" So everybody just agreed to put in Amanda. And when she found out, that was so funny. I couldn't stop laughing. [Laughs.]
Generally, with green, we saw the vets in Wes and Amanda clearly not being in on the planning. And then you have members of the Secret Garden, like Desi and Michaela, planning votes. What was your assessment of the dynamic of the team?
We still rocked it, though. We knew everybody had their own goals in mind. We knew Wes wasn't a part of our alliance, technically. But we still had his back. We were not going to put in Wes. Wes was an essential part of our team. And that dude is awesome. I hated him on TV. I loved him in person. I absolutely love that man. He's great. So but we had everybody's back. We never had a ball thrown in our own way. We had Amanda's back as well. Once Amanda slipped, that's when we decided to vote for her. But overall, the dynamic was good. We all had each other's back without trying to sabotage our games on the side
Finally, in honor of the infamous "[expletive] They Should Have Shown" episode of the old-school days of The Challenge, what's one moment from your time on the show that you wish had made the edit?
I just wish they would have shown how much I talked about my wife. And I thought for sure they're going to show that first phone call where when I saw her face. We've been together for 14 years. I have talked to her every single day. Even when she went on tour with Pitbull, I still talked to her. I still FaceTimed her. This is the first time I have gone two weeks without talking to her, without seeing her face. When I saw her face on that FaceTime screen, I was sobbing like a baby. I was a child. I thought they were gonna show that for sure.
And I always talked about how much she motivated me. I always talked about how much I loved her. I wish they would have shown that a little bit more, how much I loved her. And people who saw The Amazing Race know that. We didn't fight on the race. We listened to each other; we had compassion toward each other. We did great with one another, and she was my motivation. I just wished it would have shown that more.
That's interesting because we haven't seen these calls home you're talking about like we have in previous seasons. So those were still happening despite not making the edit?
Yeah, yeah, you haven't seen that yet. They have that new confessional room that they're doing. I was in there all the time. They didn't show any of mine. [Laughs.] I was getting attacked from the beginning. I felt all by myself. I felt lonely. I was like, "Let me go to the confessional room and let out some stuff but they didn't say