Mike Holloway (Survivor contestant)

Mike Holloway
Born	July 25, 1976 Odessa, Texas, U.S.[1]
Residence	North Richland Hills, Texas
Television	Survivor: Worlds Apart (winner)

Mike Holloway is an oil driller from Texas. He is best known as the winner of Survivor: Worlds Apart, the 30th season of the U.S. reality TV series Survivor.

Survivor: Worlds Apart

At the beginning of the season, Holloway was placed on the original "Blue Collar” tribe, Escameca.^[2] Early on, he formed a close alliance with two tribe members, Kelly Remington and Dan Foley. However, Holloway began to earn the ire of other tribe members Rodney Lavoie, Jr., Lindsey Cascaddan, and Sierra Dawn Thomas when he repeatedly insisted that the tribe do more work around camp. Nevertheless, the tribe did well in challenges and Holloway was soon viewed as the leader, and in the tribe’s only immunity challenge loss, Holloway organized the elimination of Cascaddan.

When the tribes were redistributed in the fifth episode, Holloway remained on the Escameca tribe, along with Foley, Lavoie, Thomas, former White Collars Tyler Fredrickson and Joaquin Souberbielle, and former No Collar Joe Anglim. For the final challenge before the tribal merger, Holloway decided to help his tribe throw the challenge to help protect Remington, on the other tribe; Holloway aligned with Anglim, Foley, and Thomas to eliminate Souberbielle, in a blindside which angered Souberbielle's close friend Lavoie and would eventually turn him against Mike.

Once the merge arrived, Holloway came up with the merged tribe’s name, Merica. He then re-added Remington to his Blue Collar alliance, and also brought in former White Collars Fredrickson and Carolyn Rivera, and former No Collar Will Sims II. However, Lavoie had plans to avenge Souberbielle and began forming a sub-alliance with the intent of blindsiding Holloway in the future. Despite Holloway's faction having the numbers, Remington was eliminated by the minority alliance of former No Collars Anglim, Jenn Brown, Hali Ford, and former White Collar Shirin Oskooi when Brown played a hidden immunity idol, negating the votes against her and eliminating Remington. Anglim emerged as the primary target due to his strength in challenges, and Holloway began tailing him to ensure that Anglim didn't find an immunity idol hidden around camp; Holloway found the idol, and Anglim was eliminated shortly thereafter.

Holloway later discovered that Lavoie's inner alliance—including Frederickson, Rivera, and Sims—was plotting to blindside him; at the subsequent Survivor Auction, Holloway held out from participating in order to have all of his money for a game advantage; though all of the castaways agreed to purchase letters from their loved ones, Holloway sneakily reneged; after earning the ire of his tribe-mates, Holloway relented, and subsequently lost the lottery to earn the advantage, which went to Foley. This, coupled with Holloway's attempted outing of Lavoie for trying to backstab him, resulted in Holloway's ouster from the majority alliance, and aligning with Brown and Oskooi.

Ultimately, Holloway managed to avoid elimination by winning five of the last six immunity challenges; the one time he lost, he played his idol and successfully negated the votes cast against him, eliminating Fredrickson instead. After winning the final immunity challenge on Day 38, Holloway planned to take Rivera and Sims to the end with him, and forced a tied vote between Rivera and Lavoie, thus necessitating a fire-making challenge that Holloway prepared Rivera for earlier that day. His plan was successful, and Lavoie became the eighth and final member of the jury. Months later, on May 20, 2015, it was revealed that the jury of eight ultimately awarded Holloway the win with six votes to win; Lavoie voted for Sims and Thomas voted for Rivera.^[3]

With five individual immunity challenge wins, Holloway is tied with Colby Donaldson, Tom Westman, Terry Deitz, and Ozzy Lusth for the record of the most immunity challenge wins in a single season. Also, with four additional reward challenge wins, Holloway is tied with Deitz for the record of the highest amount of overall post-merge challenge wins in a single season, and he is also one of only two contestants to win five immunity challenges and still win the season, along with Westman. Holloway also set two other Survivor records, by becoming the first person to ever successfully save himself with a hidden immunity idol and still go on to win the season, and the first winner to receive only uncounted votes against him. Host Jeff Probst has since declared his belief that Holloway will "go down as one of our top winners."^[4]

Post-Survivor

On May 6, while Worlds Apart was still airing, Holloway was listed among the 32 contestants (16 men and 16 women) eligible for the public vote on who would return for the upcoming 31st season, Survivor: Cambodia. As the theme of the new season was players who had only played once and did not win, he would become ineligible if he won Worlds Apart. Holloway placed in the top 10 on the men's side and would have appeared in the new season, but had to drop out when he was crowned Sole Survivor on May 20.^[5]

References

1. Martindale, David (February 20, 2015). "North Richland Hills man tests his mettle on ‘Survivor’". Fort Worth Star-Telegram (The McClatchy Company). Retrieved December 20, 2015.
2. Ross, Dalton (January 21, 2015). "The full cast for 'Survivor: Worlds Apart' revealed (with intel from Jeff Probst)". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved January 21, 2015.
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcXUFQ81Hog
4. Ross, Dalton (May 21, 2015). "Jeff Probst answers burning questions about the Survivor finale and reunion". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved May 24, 2015.
5. Ross, Dalton (20 May 2015). "'Survivor: Cambodia—Second Chance' cast revealed". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 8 July 2015.