The real life ninja finally fulfilled his destiny and obtained Total Victory.
After 4 years of crowning the first American Ninja Warrior, a new champion is crowned. Drew Dreschel, known as the Real Life Ninja, won American Ninja Warrior Season 11 and completed a Total Victory. He summited Mount Midoriyama with less than 3 seconds to spare.
For those who watched Ninja Warrior since the days of G4, this win has been a monumental moment. For years we saw veteran after veteran fall, and to have a near original win the tournament is amazing. For someone like Drew, he became one of the first to professionalize the sport after David Campbell (The Godfather) pushed the sport from whacky Japanese game show to actual sport.
Before becoming the Real Life Ninja, he was into parkour and spent his day time working as a car sales man and at night training his skills in parkour. He would then get a shot at the small screen on Jump City: Seattle before he would then audition for Ninja Warrior.
The rest you can say was history. Drew became a regular at the sport showing up on every Ninja Warrior since. He then took a bold (and at the time a crazy) risk in ditching being a car seller and pursuing Ninja full time. It paid off in spades as he consistently saw himself at the Finals save one shocking year.
For those who watched since the beginning, we grew up with him. Seeing him compete anywhere, everywhere, all where he could. So, for him to go from startup young gun who went as fast as possible, to a mature athlete felt like it was us going through the same feat. We saw his victories and his defeat and saw how he came back from it.
Drew worked his butt off throughout the past 9 years. Now, at age 30, with a child about to come, success running and developing gyms, pushing himself further and further, he needed the Total Victory to make solidify his status as a legend. He finally did it.
Drew Dreschel accomplished Total Victory on American Ninja Warrior. Congrats.