Survivor birthday: Mike Holloway (Worlds Apart) turns 41

Proving that players can tank their social and strategic prowess late in the game and still win, Sole Survivor Mike Holloway turns 41 years old today.

Player: Mike Holloway
Occupation: Oil Driller
Hometown: North Richland Hills, TX
Seasons: Survivor Worlds Apart
Tribes: Escameca (Blue Buff), Merica (Black Buff)
Finished: Sole Survivor

Depending on who you ask, there’s not a whole lot to like about the Dirty 30. The castaways that made up the Survivor Worlds Apart players brought us a litany of disappointing, disgusting or disturbing moments, with CBS more than ready to move on to the public Second Chances vote for Survivor Cambodia. If there was one player that could pilot the second half of the season towards some semblance of entertainment, it was Mike Holloway.

Sure, the edit certainly painted him as the golden boy early on in the season, and it didn’t take even the merge episode to plant the idea that he was going to win in the minds of astute viewers. Still, the self-appointed leader of the Blue Collar tribe led his team to immunity well before the merge, but it took until the tenth episode of the season before he started to target members of his extended alliance.

Tanking his status with Rodney and the remaining Blue Collar powers that be by outing a four-person alliance and reneging on a promise at the Auction to buy into the letters from home, Mike Holloway made himself enemy #1. The only way to guarantee safety with six Tribal Councils left when you stick your neck that far out? Win almost every single Individual Immunity Challenge left.

And that’s what he did for five of the remaining six Individual Immunities to close out the game. He got two in a row, but dropped the third of six when Carolyn won. Thankfully, he still had a Hidden Immunity Idol left to play, using it to finally knock out Tyler from the game. After that, it was three straight Immunity wins into the Final Tribal Council, while the majority picked itself apart and he was left sitting with Will and Carolyn. A 6-1-1 vote led to Mike Holloway becoming the Sole Survivor of Season 30.

Next: Survivor Winners: Ranking All 33 Sole Survivors By Season

For beasting his way to the end while keeping blood off your hands in creating the deciding jury, we at Surviving Tribal would like to wish Mike Holloway a happy 41st birthday!