‘The Challenge’ Recap: [SPOILER] Finally Earns His Red Skull After An Emotional Phone Call Home

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One player has a breakdown over missing his family back home on the June 17 episode of ‘The Challenge: Total Madness,’ but it’s all worth it when he wins an epic elimination!

It’s a guys’ elimination week on The Challenge: Total Madness, and only four men are left without red skulls: Swaggy C, Kyle, Cory and Josh. With only a few weeks left, there’s not much time for the remaining guys to win an elimination and earn their red skull to be able to run the final. Naturally, all of them are eager to get into an elimination at this point.

The weekly challenge is played in teams of three. During the first stage of the challenge, the players have to drag items across a long field from a junkyard to their bin. This lasts for an unspecified amount of time. Once all the junk is transferred, the bins are weighed, and the two teams with the heaviest bins move onto the next round. Then, those two teams have to drag heavy sleds across a field, and the first team to finish will win.

During the first round of the challenge, Kyle suffers a brutal injury when his finger gets caught in a piece of junk. Then, Cory feels his ankle pop in the midst of carrying junk across the field. However, they both push through the pain. After an incredibly tiring first stage, the two teams that move on are: Kyle, Aneesa and Jenny, and Dee, Bayleigh and Fessy. Kyle is desperate for his team to get into the tribunal so he can nominate himself for elimination, while Bayleigh wants her team in the tribunal, so she can control getting her fiance, Swaggy, nominated into elimination.

After the second round, the winners of the challenge are: Bayleigh, Dee and Fessy, which means they’ll make up the tribunal. Back at the house, all of the losers have to pick one person to go into elimination. Kyle and Cory both campaign to get themselves voted in by the other players. Cory plays his “I have a daughter at home” card, and wins the vote.

Now, the tribunal has to choose three other guys to possibly go into an elimination against Cory. Bayleigh pushes for Swaggy to be voted in, and Fessy pushes for Josh. They both reveal that Swaggy and Josh are interested to see what the actual elimination is first before deciding if they want to be the one thrown in. The third person chosen is Kyle, so he still has a chance to get put in, too.

At the elimination, Fessy decides to go against his friend Josh and vote in another friend, Swaggy, since it will be best for his own game. Dee votes for Kyle, but since it comes down to Bayleigh, she gives her fiance, Swaggy, what he wants and votes him in. Kyle and Swaggy face off in an elimination that requires them to hang from a harness and swing back and forth, pushing buttons as they go. The buttons turn on lights, but also turns them off if they’re hit a second time. The first player to light up all of their lights wins the challenge.

After a hard-fought challenge, Cory is named the winner, which means Swaggy C is eliminated. Now, Cory has a chance to run the final if he makes it that far in the competition. The Challenge continues on Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. on MTV.