The Challenge type TV Show network MTV genre Reality

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Tuesday’s episode of The Challenge: Vendettas. Read at your own risk!

How about that elimination? Tonight’s episode of MTV’s The Challenge: Vendettas featured what will likely go down as one of the toughest, bloodiest, and most epic elimination rounds in the show’s 31-season history.

When player Joss Mooney had to face O.G. champ Derrick Kosinski, a “Mercenary” brought in just for the elimination round, he thought it would be over in the blink of an eye. After all, their height and weight difference was considerable — but Mooney clearly didn’t know Kosinski. He may not be the biggest guy to ever play the game, but he’s never one to back down from a fight. That bulldog spirit had the “Crazy 8” ring battle going round after round, which Kosniski tells EW was considerably longer and considerably more rounds (50-80, he claims) than they showed on TV.

“It was an animal. It was the closest thing to a UFC fight that The Challenge, I believe, will ever see,” he says. “In reality, it’s two dudes beating the s—t out of each other for, I say, at least 90 minutes.”

While the whole thing seemed to end by accident — Mooney thought they’d both stepped out of bounds and would have to reset and keep going, but wily Kosinski grabbed the ring and scored the W — Kosinski says the move was part of his plan.

“He thought we were going to go for another fall, and I kind of tricked him and took it and ran,” he explains. “It happened a few close times where I was going for a big hit and I wanted to do a one of those like in football… I wanted to give him a couple of those. I was like, ‘At the very least, I’m walking out of this with a couple highlight-reel shots.’ I knew looking at this guy from the beginning that this is the new Challenge bull… And then at some point he said, ‘This is sick, man. This is crazy.’ You could get the feeling that he had started to start wearing down, because when you start questioning, ‘What am I actually doing here?’”

Despite that grueling face-off — Kosinski described some of his massive bruises and scars and a “ripped” groin in addition to that gash over his eye — don’t expect him and Mooney to be teamed up for the next season of Rivals or anything.

“He’s really nice,” Kosinski says. “I got home and he DM’d me and he’s like, ‘You’re a f—in’ tank!’ I’m like, ‘Bro, I feel like I just got beat with a sledgehammer.'”

In fact, they’re so friendly that Mooney will appear on the next episode of Kosinski’s podcast, Challenge Mania, which will be available here later this week.

The Challenge: Vendettas airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on MTV.