Big Brother 19 finale: Where does winner Josh Martinez stack up?
Is Josh the best winner in show history? Far from it; instead, we’re more curious in figuring out whether or not he is the worst winner in recent memory. He seems like a fun guy and it’s great that a superfan won, but how much did he win it versus Paul losing it? We’ll start off by saying that our coverage of the show at CarterMatt / other publications only started with season 11, so we’re a little rusty on some of the earlier seasons. Nonetheless, we do think that the majority of the early-season winners are still stronger than Josh other than maybe Lisa. We also think Adam from Big Brother 9 is probably better, even if he may not be the most likable contestant ever.
Of the post-Big Brother 11 seasons, it’s clear that there’s no comparison of Josh to Hayden Moss, Andy Herren, Derrick Lavasseur, or Nicole Franzel. They all did a whole lot more in terms of directly controlling the game, whereas Josh let Paul do most of the heavy lifting and he went along with some of the orders given to him. What’s a little more interesting is comparing Josh to some of the other remaining winners.
Jordan Lloyd – There is a comparison here between Jordan and Josh in that they were both likable options against less-likable competitors. The main difference is that Josh acted in the house in such a way that he needed to go up against someone harshly disliked to win.
Rachel Reilly – She really won her way to the end and was more of an underdog throughout.
Ian Terry – We do think that Ian had a little more of a grasp of a social game, but he (like Josh) benefited from being up against someone in Dan the jury did not want to reward.
Steve Moses – This is probably one of the best comparisons, but at least Steve had the sense to get rid of the biggest threat in Vanessa at the final three rather than take her to the end. She would’ve beaten him, and many will argue that Paul, had he given better goodbye messages, would’ve beaten Josh.
Ultimately, we think that Josh is a deserving winner given the circumstances of his season. Yet, he probably also is the worst winner other than maybe Lisa, who mostly just benefited from a bogus jury twist. Remember that Josh is a guy who was shouting at people, banging pots and pans, insulting Mark, Jessica, and Cody, and often being not too nice to some of the people in the game. Yet, he managed to be in a final three against two other people who were heavily disliked, and he managed to create goodbye messages that were smart enough to convey his message. He definitely did some things right, but he only eked out a vote of one person. If you told us that someone like Josh would win this season after nearly provoking Mark into a fight — and then Mark voted for him to win — we never would’ve believed it.
Where do you think Josh stands among Big Brother winners? Be sure to share now in the comments!
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