The Challenge fans baffled over Amber and Chauncey's rookie mistake

Amber and Chauncey, The Challenge: Ride or Dies teammates and real-life couple, should have known better: you never offer yourself up for elimination. 

After all, while Chauncey Palmer is a newcomer to the MTV reality competition, his girlfriend Amber Borzotra is a The Challenge champion (she won the Double Agents season back in 2020) so she should be well aware that putting herself up as the sacrificial lamb in The Zone was not a historically smart move. 

But let's backtrack: the episode picks up with Kaycee and Kenny versing Jordan and Aneesa in a comeback face-off to see which previously eliminated pair would be returning to the competition. Aneesa and Jordan prove victorious in the "Knot So Fast" comp and send the brother-sister team packing for good (much to the worry of Jordan's ex Tori Deal and the chagrin of Kaycee's GF Nany Gonzalez). 

In this week's regular challenge, "Runaway Ride" — in which players are jostled around inside a speeding bus as they have to locate and match up 10 balls — things don't go well for Amber and Chauncey, the latter of whom spends more time vomiting from motion sickness than winning. Nany and her partner Johnny Bananas end up taking the top spot: "We're so close to the finals now...we could not have won at a more opportune time," Johnny says.

Nany and Johnny get to select one pair to save, with the rest of the teams going immediately to interrogation. They choose to save Fessy and Moriah, "arguably the strongest team here," because having them on their side this late into the game is beneficial, they reason. 

But when it comes time to pick the Ride or Dies who'd go directly into The Zone, Amber and Chauncey are one step ahead of them. "We know the position we're in," Chauncey begins. "We just know it's between Olivia and Horacio and Chauncey and me," Amber adds. "We'd rather just know ahead of time...to be ready to complete," Chauncey says. 

Johnny and Nany respect their wishes and, after Olivia and Horacio draw the safe dagger and choose to save Tori and Devin, Aneesa and Jordan join the couple in the elimination challenge. Playing "Rumble Tumble," in which players are strapped back-to-back to their opponent as they fight to knock down stacks of blocks, Jordan and Aneesa beast the elimination. "Just when you think Jordan is out of juice, this is what separates rookies from champions," Devin says of the victory. 

"You did this to yourselves," Tori says of Chauncey and Amber's decision. "You vote yourselves into elimination and it's not gonna be cute."

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