After a long break I’m going to do a few of these again : )

Hey there. For those who don’t know I’m a huge fan of the CBS Reality TV show Survivor and I devote a lot of my time in watching and analyzing the show and its players. In this little series I’ll be sharing my Survivor winners rankings in which I analyze and rank the 39 winners we’ve had and the games they played. I will try to be critical of their gameplay and refrain from letting bias interfere, though I can’t promise to be 100% unbiased towards some of these winners. I’m starting from the bottom and we’ll go up my ranking from there.

Today I’ll be covering the winner I have ranked #37 out of 39.
Check the thread description to see what season they were on.

Previous winners - #39, #38

With that said let’s get started.


#37 / 39 - Mike Holloway (S30 - Worlds Apart)



This might be another controversial one but I have Mike way down here. Don’t get me wrong, I like Mike and was definitely rooting for him while watching Worlds Apart, but I do have to be critical of the game he played. He showcased that you can still win the game as a challenge beast, although nowadays you’ll have to add fire making to that skillset in order to pull that off (thanks Ben!). But anyway, let’s backtrack.

Mike started of World Apart on the Escameca tribe, better known by their alias as “Blue Collar”. You see, the theme of the season was to pin people from different styles of professions against each other. It’s a little cheesy but compared to some of the stuff we’ve seen before and since, I actually don’t mind it too much. Mike’s occupation as an Oil Driller definitely earns him a spot on the Blue Collar tribe, teaming up with the likes of a barrel racer and a postal worker. Now where there is Blue Collar there has to be White Collar right? Of course! An opposing tribe filled with scheming rich people. And then there’s another tribe? What collar are they? Well apparently you can also just have no collar according to Jeff Probst, so people like Vince the coconut vendor just kind of go there. They basically just couldn’t be bothered coming up with a new cheesy term so they threw all the misfits over there.

Mike quickly started working with Kelly and Dan and was in a powerful position from the start. A little rough around the edge and pushing a little too much when it came to work around their camp, but overall a solid position. Their team was clearly the dominant challenge team as they didn’t see tribal council until day 11. During that time there were many loud arguments between Lindsey and Rodney, as well as Dan just being Dan (not a good thing). Of course this was going to go to war during tribal council. Together with Dan and Kelly, Mike chose Rodney’s side and after splitting votes on their target Lindsey, and the only tribe member out of the loop, Sierra, Lindsey went home. Hurray.

When they get to their next challenge, Jeff announces that tribes are getting switched around. Always a stressful and crucial point of the game, where basically anyone can go from a position of power to being the next one voted out. Luckily for Mike, 4 of the 5 Blue Collars stay on his tribe, with only Kelly being swapped elsewhere. The plan here should be easy right? Just vote off the new people until you cruise to merge. Well due to Rodney being, well, Rodney (seriously, so many players this season just can’t be categorized as anything but their weird selves), he and White Collar Juaquin start bonding and bromancing. The other Blue Collars were rightfully nervous about this as it would only take 1 person to flip. Still, they manage to win immunity so all their happy butts get to see another day. And hey, Kelly survives the vote on the other tribe, so good for Blue Collar right?

Knowing Kelly probably wasn’t going to make it past another one, Mike throws the immunity challenge. His fears are confirmed as Rodney decides siding with Juaquin and his buddy Tyler is the better play. Luckily for Mike they opt to target No Collar Joe instead of him, due to being a challenge beast (which could have been implied about Mike as well). A No Collar going wouldn’t have been the worst case scenario for Mike, but he and Dan decide to inform Joe about this as they’d rather see a White Collar go home. This makes poor Sierra the swing vote between a macho men alliance and a macho man alliance plus Dan. At tribal she votes Juaquin and he ends up going home, shocking Rodney. Mike tried to explain but that obviously wasn’t going to work on a hothead like Rodney.

And here we find ourselves at the merge! Now you might be thinking, with such a good pre-merge showing, how on earth is Mike all the way at #37? I mean I really haven’t said anything bad about him. Well that’s to come soon, don’t worry. But hey, he’s in a good spot for the moment. Kelly is back, Tyler is an ally now, and they manage to pull White Collar Carolyn as well. Oh and that No Collar Will guy.

They try to repeat what failed before by voting Joe, but he wins the individual immunity challenge so they change the vote to Jenn. I mean the girl is like a surfer chick, clearly clueless to whats going on around her right? Well you’d be wrong, as she plays an idol and Mike’s ally Kelly goes home instead. Whoops.

During the next few days Mike oversees Joe and Tyler discussing an idol clue, and due to him and Tyler now being allies Tyler is forced to tell him about it. Here Mike pulled a clever move by telling people that he saw Joe with the idol, making everyone else stop looking as he continues his own search, which successfully ends in him finding an idol. Oh at the vote they vote Hali, who infamously named the merge tribe ‘Merica.

Joe, coming off his first loss in individual immunities, figures the only way he sticks around is by convincing people he had the idol. They were already told so by Mike so if Joe shows them a fake one they’d avoid voting him for sure. Well unluckily for Joe, Mike has the real one and even convinces Joe to give him his fake idol as a show of trust. Mike ends up playing the fake idol on Will at tribal, on the off chance that it’s real. It wasn’t, but I’ll give him props for it. Big surprise, Joe goes home due to White Collar Shirin preferring Jenn over him.

And if that’s all I had to talk about, Mike would be a top tier winner. But this is the point where he makes, in my opinion, the single biggest mistake a winner has made. The reward challenge is an auction, and knowing that Rodney was secretly plotting behind his back, Mike opts to save all his money to buy an advantage in the game. Before that advantage comes around, however, Jeff presents them with letters from loved ones. Someone (I think Shirin but I can’t remember) came up with the plan to all pay Jeff 20 dollars so they would all get it. Now Mike, knowing he might be next, initially waits until he’s the last person yet to pay Jeff, only to then back out, making him the only person with 500 dollars remaining, meaning he can outbid anyone for the advantage. Not too shabby, if a bit scummy. A lot of people aren’t happy with Mike using the loved ones letters as a tool, and especially Dan gets really mad at him. If Mike had stuck to his gut and just bought the advantage, I would’ve respected this a lot more. But this becomes a near fatal mistake when Mike the Oil Driller caves in to Dan the screaming post office worker. He gets up and buys the letter anyway. This now means he’s tied for the highest amount of money, which then f***s him over as both he and Dan go all out on the advantage. Dan wins the tiebreaker meaning Mike is left with nothing except being public enemy #1. Mike tried saving himself by telling people about Rodney’s scheming, but it doesn’t work. He’s really on his own now. Luckily for Mike, he manages to clutch an immunity win and the rest of the tribe is forced to sack Jenn.

At the next challenge he wins again, and at tribal threatened everyone that he was playing his idol on Shirin, the only other outsider to this big alliance. Will and Tyler scramble and vote Dan in an effort to not get blindsided, but Mike reveals he was bluffing and Shirin goes home instead. At the reward challenge Rodney is pissed that he can’t go on the reward on his birthday (he lost lmao). On the reward, which Mike and his squad won, he made an ally in Carolyn. Rodney tried to pull a fast one on Mike by pretending to quit the game so Mike wouldn’t bring his potential idol to tribal, but Mike isn’t stupid and Rodney isn’t a great actor, so Mike plays his idol. Carolyn and poor Sierra (who is somehow still around) vote with him to eliminate Tyler, Mike’s biggest threat in challenges.

Dan’s advantage is revealed to be an extra vote, the first of its kind, and Mike + Carolyn figure he’s too dangerous to keep around. Mike wins immunity so he’s safe, but this makes Carolyn the easy target, especially with that extra vote. Luckily for them she has an idol too, so Dan gets blindsided.

Loved ones visit happens, and Mike wins the loved ones challenge, meaning he gets both an advantage in the next immunity as well as time to chill with his mom. They end up being able to practice the next immunity challenge, which helps Mike as he manages to win that one as well. At camp it’s really a battle of who goes home between hothead Rodney and Barrel Racer Sierra. Sierra just hasn’t pissed anyone off aside from annoying Jenn, so she is voted out over Rodney.

Then we hit final 4. The classic, good final 4 mind you. No idols, no forced fire. Mike really has to win immunity to get to the end, that’s the downside of being a huge threat. Well Mike pulls through as he wins the challenge, marking his 5th and also a guaranteed spot in the final 3. Mike realizes that Will is sticking to Rodney, meaning Carolyn will have to make fire. They practice a lot and it pays off, as she ends up winning it, marking the end of Rodney’s journey. You will be missed my man.

At final tribal, he ended up apologizing for his auction move, and was praised for being a challenge beast. He ends up winning 6-1-1, only losing Sierra’s and Rodney’s votes.

All in all that didn’t sound too bad right? One stupid mistake and that’s it really. And, well, you’d be right. But never have I seen someone go from so much respect and power, to enemy #1 in one second. Never have I seen someone get intimidated by a bald yelling postal worker. Mike literally had to win every single immunity in order to make it to the end, and he would’ve gone home without that idol. I’ll give him props for his pre-merge game, as well as pulling in a solid ally in Carolyn, but man did he f*** up. There’s been plenty of winners who have played from the bottom, but rarely ever is it 100% due to their own fault. You could say the same for Ben, the previous entry in this ranking, but at least Mike managed to win challenges instead of digging 1 inch deep into the sand, so there's that.



See you next time for one of the more obscure winners we’ve had. They're a pretty big crab fan.