in u.s survivor no matter how you do it winning survivor deserves some major props sure you may
think a certain winner is underrated or overrated but at the end of the day they won survivor which
is obviously a big deal in fact in the old school days the winner would be interviewed on multiple
national stations the very next day so the point is we can do debates on winners all day long but
it doesn't change the fact that out of thousands of applications and hundreds of contestants
these 38 people could say they won survivor and will forever be ingrained in survivor history
however there are many players who despite it being a different type of game have gone on to win
survivor that unfortunately many people don't know about due to them being from other countries now
for me while i didn't start watching international survivor until the summer of last year i still had
heard of some of the winners just simply due to being within the survivor community when
i joined the reddit pages in 2019 i heard that p and david won the most recent australian survivor
seasons i heard that survivor south africa produced one of the most dominant winners ever
and rob bentley in years prior before i even joined any hardcore survivor phantom websites
i learned of people like jericho and lisa due to them simply being winners of their most recent
country survivor season so even though i had never watched any international survivor i
knew a good portion of the winners especially the recent ones from each of the three non-american
english-speaking franchises heck i'm sure most of our fans have heard of hayley and nicole
the two most recent winners from sa and au even if they didn't watch the seasons simply for spending
any sort of time on survivor forms this past summer i explained in an earlier video of mine
that i never had really any interest in watching international survivor mainly because it was so
different but i think another reason might have been due to me knowing a lot of the winners it's
one thing to sit through a u.s survivor season knowing the winner when seasons are 14 episodes
and 43 minutes long it's another thing to watch an australian survivor season knowing the winner
and having to sit through at least 24 episodes with half the episodes being an hour or more
but last year during my usual covert routine of laying in bed bored to death i came across
survivor south africa champions and i was actually very intrigued it was a season i had no clue about
but at the same time it didn't seem like it would be a drag to watch so for the first time
in my life i decided to watch an entire season of international survivor yes believe it or not this
was the first international survivor season i watched fully and boy am i glad i did because
it opened my eyes to just how great international survivor can be to the point now where i actually
look forward to both the international versions of survivor more than the us version because of
their different style but i do wonder how far i would have gone with international survivor
had it not been for this season because there is definitely some really bad international seasons
especially from south africa whose old school seasons bore me to tears and going into the
season i did worry that this would be a very basic season since south africa really hadn't
gotten its footing yet when it came to producing survivor and in general i didn't know how popular
survivor was in south africa and worried this may be 20 recruits who didn't really care much
about the game and despite some massive flaws within this season i was glued to my screen
as this season exceeded my wildest expectations and a large part of that was due to one player and
in my mind the best of our player most fans have never heard of everyone meets graham jenniker a 28
year old financial manager from the western cape he started the game on the skeleton tribe which
is captained by courtney cridge aka the champion of the tribe which was the theme of the season
and one of the biggest problems of the season each tribe was captained by a champion of south africa
with corn being a rugby legend and mark fish captain of tara being a football legend the
only impact they had gameplay wise was that they would also be able to vote at the final tribal
council and once the post merge came the two would face each other in a duel in each episode with the
winner being able to neglect a vote of their choice at that tribal council basically this
was south africa's version of island of the idols where two players would give tips and pointers to
others in the game the obvious problem with this though is that these two weren't former winners
and they literally knew nothing about the game yet they're having a major impact in the decision
making on their tribe and in the first episode i watched and discussed as the obvious was
being presented by cornei going into the first tribal council keep your tribe strong and who
cares about anything else to make matters worse cornei handpicked the alpha male of the tribe
xavion as sort of his right-hand man and with all that power xavion formed a majority alliance
which left the two weak links of david and shona as the targets going into the first tribal council
however graham realized what was going on and realized since the boat was so obvious he had a
chance to take control of the majority in seleton and formed the rugrats alliance with david shona
gina altoff and mora and at that first tribal council ashley who was the weakest of xavion's
alliance was blindsided in a 7-3 vote i can't express enough just how much this first vote
changed my outlook on the season and just how badass it was from graham graham not only got
a majority alliance in his favor to blindside the alpha male and xavion in order to save two
obvious weak links but he got the majority of the tribe to go against their captain's best wishes
who was a freaking legend in south africa and literally had the entire season named after him
this showed right away that graham was playing his game even if it meant pulling off a massive
blind side in the first tribal council so three days in neither the captain or the alpha male who
dominated the season's first challenge were in control of the tribe it was mr graham gennaker
who had full control and stayed in control of the rugrats alliance while also bringing in xavier on
and he controlled seleton up until the tribe swap in one of the most innovative tribe swaps
in survivor history graham stayed in the majority as his allies of xavion mora and altaf stuck with
him on the new skeleton tribe with sally vel and boule now in the minority and once again knowing
this was a prime time to make an alliance with people who were desperate graham and xavion bonded
with uttara's alpha male and soli and the three big threats made a pact to stick with each other
as sally also had the majority alliance on otara before the swap and being the obviously much more
dominant tribe after the swap the solitude members bonded as they didn't have to ruffle any feathers
with each other as they won every beauty challenge and went into the merge with seven four numbers
over the new atari tribe one thing that did happen during the tribe swap though
was that graham got coronade to hand over an idol to gina as she was an obvious target on
the new atari tribe and a part of graham's rugrats alliance after a controversy over the idol on the
original celeton tribe they came to a decision that it would be best for coronade to hang on
to it and use it when need be and after the tribe swap gina was a clear target as she and david were
now in the minority even despite basically being against his captain the entire game
graham still got cornei to give celitan's idol to one of his allies to blindside an original uttara
member unfortunately gina had her idol stolen from her and was voted out at the first tribe
swap tribal council which was another massive problem with this season with players being
allowed to steal idols this is what caused all the chaos in the first place on celeton and ultimately
what got gina voted out who is without question one most screwed over players in survivor history
now to be fair the ability to steal idols did lead to some amazing moments this season but it's still
really unfair to watch somebody's dream and due to such a dumb role but nonetheless graham had full
control of not only the new skeleton tribe but he also still had his rugrats alliance and going
into the merge the only people in the game who we had no connections with were marion shane and cevu
and lo and behold those three were regulated to the bottom at the merge as even the odutars felt
more secure with graham and voted with him at the merge to split the votes between marion and shane
who had an idol in between them however this is where graham's game almost fell apart for some
odd reason also voted for sivu and the vote ended up being a tie between graham and marion as shane
was the one who ultimately played the idol this obviously could have been a disaster for graham
as it just would have took one person in the majority eight to flip their votes and he would
have gone home he was especially lucky that david didn't flip as he formed a bond with the new atari
tribe and the three were banking on his vote to flip the game around but thankfully everyone else
stuck to the plan and marion was voted out on the revote after this near disaster it's almost like
graham flipped a switch and he went from playing a controlling game to absolutely taking no more risk
and during the merge graham played a tony vlacho's light game with less llama noises flipping back
and forth between alliances while also having xavion as his shield and number to navigate
his way through each vote at the final 10 not wanting to take any more chances on another split
vote graham brought in the minority alliance to blindside the massive threat of sally he then took
out sally's close allies in vel and old rugrat member mora back to back while keeping the massive
threat of shane around who now had two idols in his pocket making him a much bigger target over
graham so at the final seven he orchestrated the blind side of shane and unbelievably shane didn't
play either of his idols and like james seven years prior he was voted out with two idols in
his pocket with only three tribal councils left to play them this just goes to show that graham
was not only an amazing strategical player but he had an amazing social game as well as after
trying to vote shane out three episodes prior he gained the trust of shane so much that he didn't
play either of his idols despite the time to play them dwindling so despite working with pretty much
everyone throughout the game grimm's true final three at this point was him xavion and david
and after altoff caused some mistrust once again he was unanimously voted out at the final six
giving graham a clear path to victory however this portion of the game was really graham's only bad
gameplay throughout the season with shane being so confident he left one of his idols behind at the
final seven and with sibo being the only person to know about where shane left his idol he found it
and it was now his idol thankfully for graham he won the final five immunity as had hadith xavion
or anyone else for that matter i think he more than likely goes home now again to be fair this
rule is obviously beyond stupid as idols should be notified once someone is voted out however
i do think it was obviously risky to vote for zevu in the first place as he was shane's closest ally
and if shane had indeed left an hour behind sivu would be the one to know about it i also think at
this point graham was the biggest target left in the game it would have been the target even over
xavion had he not won immunity despite xavier on paper being such a massive threat especially
with one more muni challenge left at that final beauty challenge boule 1 and graham looked to be
in trouble as you would think cebu and boule would pull david into the final three to vote out graham
however a couple of interesting things happened during the immunity challenge knowing he was a
goat david volunteered himself to be voted out as he felt the other three were all deserving of the
win however as part of winning the fire immunity challenge boule also got the reward of talking
with the captains and i think after they were blinded by the big move itis from cevu at the
last tribal council they convinced boule that sibu was the biggest threat left in the game
and with this knowledge she told david and graham that they should vote out the jury threat in sivu
so while graham somehow wasn't even a name despite being the obvious target you can't really give him
that much credit as david basically quit the game and two people who weren't a part of the
game dynamics made an impact on the final decision but then at that tribal council graham in my eyes
made the wrong move as he voted for david which caused david and sivo to go to a fire and the
much bigger threat and cevu won the challenge leaving graham against two tough competitors
going into the final chapel council instead of just one at the final tribal graham had a bit of
a lackluster performance with even shade having to prompt him up in the middle of it as everyone
in the jury knew he played a great game yet he wasn't acting confident in his game but in the end
in the only plurality final tribal council vote in survivor history which included each player
receiving more than one vote which was also a survivor first graham became the sole survivor
beating boule and cevu in a 5-3-2 vote the votes here were pretty interesting i mean xavion who was
graham's closest ally and shane who seemed to respect graham's game the most voted for cebu
boule almost fluked her way to a win as she got the votes from her allies of sally and vel
and for some reason cornell thought she played a better all-around game than graham
but in the end graham did get the five votes he needed as he got the votes from his ally amora
david and altoff with mark agreeing that graham played the best game his real surprising vote was
from marion who literally started off the final tribal council campaigning for cevu
and while shane also voted for sivu you would think she would have done the same thing as shane
and to be honest i'm not sure what to make of this vote again while cevu and bully both played strong
games graham was on another level and i think if this was a modern us season he probably does win
by a lot more but i do wonder what made people like xavion cornay and shane not vote his way
was it due to his lackluster final tribal council or was he not associable as it appeared on screen
what made people like david and marion vote for him were they just simply more respectful of the
game than other players and voted based on who played the best game as opposed to who they got
along with the most again it's not like this is a recent or popular survivor season with post game
interviews everywhere on why who voted for who scenes we didn't see on screen etc but whether
you credit or discredit graham nearly winning the jury vote you can't deny what a game this man
played he single-handedly flipped the game three days in blindsided the tribe's captain and alpha
male he created bonds with essentially everyone on the old and new celeton tribe he got his captain
who he blindsided numerous times to hand off his idol to save an ally at the merge he got everyone
on his side to target the minority alliance that he wanted out he pulled the tony vlachos flipping
back and forth between alliances to vote out who he wanted he blindsided shane with two idols in
his pocket and he ultimately won the game against some serious competition cementing him as one of
the most dominant winners in survivor history and yet despite being such a dominant winner i never
heard of him before watching this season and to this day i really see his name being brought up
in the survivor community even within the south african and international community and i think
that's simply due to the terrible timing of the season or at the very least compared to other
international seasons in 2016 we saw the rebirth of the australian civil franchise and a year later
we saw the debut of new zealand survivor and a year after that in 2018 survivor south africa
came off a four-year hiatus every branded itself with a new production team these newer seasons are
considered the quote real version of international survivor with some people completely disregarding
seasons that came before the rebranded versions also international survivor seasons are hard
to find and the go-to site where most fans watch international survivor doesn't include
international seasons that took place before australia in survivor 2016. and for me personally
i watched survivor essay champions on youtube but unfortunately every episode has now been taken
down so with international survivor already being rare to find even more so when it's any season
before 2016 a lot of good moments seasons and players are forgotten about in survivor history
in fact even though i haven't watched it yet i've heard there's another fantastic winner that comes
in one of the early south african seasons who i also very rarely seen mentioned within the
survivor community and unfortunately as south africa and australian survivor both continue to
produce new seasons survivor essay champions will be even more forgotten about over time i mean i
see it all the time when people ask what survivor south africa season to watch fans say to skip
seasons one through five and go straight to the philippines since it's a rebranded and much better
version of south african survivor even though champions is still an incredible season despite
its flaws and sometimes dragged out payson and is miles ahead of a season like malaysia the point
is graham gennaker is an amazing survivor player and should not only be talked about along with the
greats of foreign survivor winners but winners in general and i so hope we get to see him again in a
future survivor essay all-star season and then maybe people will have a reason to go back and
watch him dominate his og season i'll link a place in the description where you can watch the river
sa champions it does take some time but trust me it will be worth it if you want to be entertained
by not only an extremely underrated season but also watch episode by episode the greatest unknown
player in survivor history thank you guys so much for watching if you like what you see
then smash that like and subscribe button to support the channel and for this video
especially share it with all your survivor friends to show graham some respect have a good one guys