Survivor: Defending the less touted winners in Survivor history

Jud “Fabio” Birza – Winner of Survivor: Nicaragua

Fabio is almost always in the last spot or second to last spot when it comes to ranking the winners and I totally understand why that is. The guy played from the bottom pretty much the entire time on Nicaragua, but fortunately for him, he played on a season where people didn’t care about strategy when it came to voting for a winner.

First and foremost though, Fabio was the youngest person ever to win Survivor and still holds that record to this day (Nicaragua aired in 2010). Part of why Fabio made it as far as he did before he became a true threat was because of how likable he was. He cracked jokes, made people laugh, and was overall just a good guy to be around. He also played the dumb blonde card and that led to people not being intimidated by him.

For the most part, however, Fabio was just a number for the majority alliance throughout the season. He caught a huge break when two people quit on Day 28, which immediately put him in the final seven. From there, he avoided elimination because Benry was seen as more of a threat and then he managed to win the final three immunity challenges, which put him in the Final Three.

Fabio won Nicaragua because he was a nice guy and, as I mentioned earlier, this particular cast didn’t necessarily care about game play. Even still, Fabio narrowly beat Chase 5-4 to be crowned as the winner and while I understand why he’s at the bottom of most people’s rankings, he did what he had to do to get to the end.