After last week’s pivotal episode of Survivor 50, fans and Survivor alum alike had a lot of thoughts to share on the current status of the game. And of course, Tyson Apostol joined the conversation via his podcast, “The Pod Has Spoken,” alongside a very well-timed guest appearance by Survivor: Palau’s third place finisher, Ian Rosenberger.
As Tyson introduced himself, his co-host Riley McAtee, and their producer Ashleigh Smith, he included a few nicknames for each of them. And after Ian’s introduction, he expressed how he wished he had a cool nickname, too. That’s when Tyson revealed that Coach Wade gave them their nicknames, which got Ian started straightaway on his feelings towards some of this season’s players.
“I hated that Coach gave people nicknames this season.” - Ian Rosenberger on “The Pod Has Spoken.”
He then shares that he was in the running for a spot on Survivor 50, but it was always up in the air with producers saying, “we’ll let you know,” which is the first we’re really heard of this happening. Most of the other players who got cut felt like they were a done deal before getting the boot. However, Ian says Jeff Probst sent him a really nice email letting him know their final casting decision for him and he has no ill-will towards the host.
And now he’s having a great time watching the anniversary season as a fan, getting to see some of his favorite past players return. He mentions he’s been a fan from afar of Ozzy Lusth, he loves Jonathan Young, and he thinks Aubry Bracco is “assassin” who is extremely interesting to watch. But there were also people from the very start that he put on a list who he expected wouldn’t play well.
One of the top people on that list? Rick Devens. Ian isn’t a fan of his unapologetic approach to gameplay and goes as far as to say that after the first couple of episodes he remembers thinking, “I’d hate playing with this guy.” He goes on to say that Devens and Emily Flippen are both players he’d categorize as “shape shifters”—the ones who have no problems changing alliances and strategy at the drop of a hat. And while he acknowledges that fans always love that kind of game the most because it’s so interesting to watch, he hates it.
Ian admitted, “there are people that I watch that I immediately respect…and there are other people that I’m like, I would not play with them as far as I could throw them,” mostly placing that dividing line between those emphasizing loyalty and those who are such big fans of the show they just want to create a big performance for the viewers at home. Specifically stating, “if you speak in the third person, there’s no chance I’m gonna play the game with you.” Which is when Riley asks about Rizo Velovic.
“I’m so out on Rizo,” the Survivor: Palau finalist laughed. He also name drops Devens and Coach as two other people he would never play with, even though he’s sure they’d have fun outside of the game.
And when discussing his favorite players and the reason he likes them so much, he again mentions Jonathan as well as Joe Hunter, who he considers to be really decent people and good dudes. And similar to Joe, Ian wasn’t a fan of Devens fake idol play or admission to it.
But Ian also notes that as much as he likes Jonathan, he might have blown up his game by targeting Ozzy and looping in Devens who exposed him and Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick. And as far as winner predictions go, he says both Cirie Fields and Tiffany Ervin have really good chances because of the relationships they’re building to protect themselves in the game.
So it will definitely be interesting to see if things start playing out the way he sees it. Especially knowing his player opinions pretty much oppose those of the fans, with the exception of Cirie who he and the fans both love.
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