It's never easy being the first to leave a reality show, but somebody's gotta do it.
The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros debuted tonight, pitting Challenge champs against real pro athletes in some seriously intense athletic events, all in the name of charity. In tonight's first episode, the champs definitely struggled against the pros, but each team lost a member in the end.
The Champs said goodbye to Veronica Portillo while the pros lost Candice Wiggins in a familiar battle against a wall that they had to punch and kick through in order to climb.
E! News was on set for this season, and in the video above, Veronica and Candice speak out after their eliminations, though neither one seems too upset as they look back on their one episode.
"I was really happy that we weren't going up in elimination against one of the pro girls, because I'll be honest, I'm not an athlete,"says Veronica, who's been away from the franchise for eight years. "I'm happy that I didn't have to compete against them, because that would be a real big embarrassment on national television."
Veronica also definitely underestimated the skills of the pros she was going up against.
"I know that the term "professional athlete" is very broad, so I was thinking that maybe they wouldn't be at the top of their game. I quickly learned that they were top of the game, so it's intimidating," she says. "I really don't know how a Challenger would actually take home the big W at the end, but you gotta wait and see I guess. You never really know how these games go."
Candice, who's a lot less familiar with the world of The Challenge, made the big mistake of volunteering herself for elimination.
"There's like a game within the game, and so I know I broke the very first rule, I broke the biggest rule, which is don't nominate yourself, so I just walked right into that," she says. "But for me it was like, as a professional athlete, and just the way that I am, I had to approach this game the way that I approach life... I was really happy with the way I was able to play it, but I also understand like if I had a second chance at this, obviously there'd be a different strategy."
While they may have only lasted one episode, both women gave it their all—and they're going to have the scars to prove it.
"It was fun," Veronica says. "I came here, I competed in one competition, in one challenge, in one elimination and I literally have blisters and bruises and cracked knuckles and scabs all over the place. I don't know how long I could actually do this for, to be honest."
The Challenge airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on MTV.