Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Challenge: Battle of the Eras, season 40, episode 8, "The Era of the Gladiator."

Even on only one leg, Derrick Kosinski is a force to be reckoned with on The Challenge. But there's only so far he can push his body with a serious injury, and his time on season 40 came to an end in this week's episode.

The three-time champion put up a hell of a fight before he went home, though. He beat both Mark Long and Horacio Gutierrez in difficult eliminations, and competed in multiple challenges on an injured leg. As Era 1's last man standing (alongside Rachel Robinson for the women), he faced Era 3's Cory Wharton in a physical, blindfolded boxing elimination in episode 8.

Despite only having one working leg, Derrick hopped his way into a nail-biter of a result. Host TJ Lavin revealed that both Derrick and Cory hit all their targets on each other, and it all came down to time. Since Cory hit his last target faster, Derrick was sent home, leaving Rachel (who beat Averey Tressler) all on her own to keep Era 1 alive.

Below, Derrick opens up to Entertainment Weekly about how his leg injury was even worse than it looked and how he likely would have gone home soon even if he had beat Cory.

MTV

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What was going on with Era 1? Why did you guys struggle so much this season?

DERRICK KOSINSKI: We definitely couldn't figure out how to win together, for one way or another. It's weird, it's like they brought all these entertaining people together from the past that just couldn't f---ing figure it out, no matter what we did. Too many cooks in the kitchen, I don't know. We just weren't that good together. I think that if I didn't mess up my leg, me and Rachel could have carried the torch for a long time there. I felt really good before I had hurt my leg, so I think that me and Rachel would've been a powerhouse going forward. I think I would've won five or six eliminations, get the record in an individual season.

But I can't speak for everybody, I can only speak for myself and my preparation. You can't just show up and be like, "I'm good, but I haven't prepared or done anything for the past six months." "I trained for a month" — that's not going to work here. Do you see Era 4? Also, you have to take into account how old we are. We have to do more than the youngsters. We have to go above and beyond to meet them at their level.

What was the diagnosis for your leg? How bad was it?

A blown out, torn ACL — shredded, gone — and torn meniscus. And there was an LCL strain. When you talk about competing on a torn ACL and meniscus, it kept on coming out of place and me having to pop it back in, multiple times, just walking. It happened once at Devin's party where I was trying to slap him on his butt — scared the hell out of me because I was like, "Oh my God, it's not getting better, and now I have to leave quickly because I'm starting to sweat." I'm trying to hide it. It happened again as we walked up to the heights challenge and I was like, "F---, it's happening while I'm walking." It came out three or four times there, and it's just all adrenaline rush, pop it back in, and keep going.

So I knew that win or lose this elimination, I wasn't going to continue much longer. I think that next day I was going to go get an MRI, and I don't know what was going to happen. If I had won, maybe I would've been like, "I can't continue." You saw a lot of raw emotions happen there in those final minutes of this episode. I don't think I was going to continue on much longer because I was scared.

When I was up there on the gladiator challenge with the shields, I'm going up against big, strong, athletic men on a muddy, slippery surface. If two or three of these guys land on me, if my knee just snaps? I was scared. Funny, I wasn't scared to go into elimination with Cory though. I just was like, "You want to f---ing fight? Let's fight." I had to put my money where my mouth was and just keep coming at him and see what he could bring to the table. Had I had two working legs, I would've won. But it is what it is, and I'm glad I came close.

MTV

You hit all the targets, and it just came down to time. That's impressive for doing it on just one leg against a competitor who is at his full potential!

Yeah, it was painful to not be told that I won. It hurt, but what can you do? It was the poker face from TJ for me. Because he was like, "Derrick, you did it fast." And I was like, in my head, "F--- yeah!" And then he was like, "But Cory, you did it faster." And it was like he just took that sword and stuck it right through my body and that was it.

After your elimination, what was the healing process like?

I think this was God's way of saying, "You have to go home to your wife who's nine months pregnant, and you are not going to continue playing this game as much as you want." The very next day after this elimination, production took me to get an MRI, and there I found out that I had a torn ACL and meniscus, amongst the other little things. Those are the things that need to get fixed, surgically repaired. After that, I got home, and we had to wait until baby Maverick introduced himself to the world, and then I had to wait six more weeks for my wife to be medically cleared just to do things, and then I had the surgery.

Once I had the surgery, now I have the baby that I'm holding and picking up and sitting down with one leg as the left knee heals. Now, it's been three months post-op and it's been difficult. It hasn't been easy to do everything a dad should be able to do with a newborn. But I think we're doing a good job — he's a happy baby. There's no pity parties here.

MTV

Congratulations on that, as well as still having an impressive season regardless of injury. The way you competed on what was essentially a season-ending injury just goes to show why you're one of the greats.

Thank you so much for saying that. The one thing that I did get out of the season is I got my 13th individual elimination win. I thought I was cooking. I beat Mark, I beat Horacio. I felt fully confident that I was going to beat Cory on one leg. And it did feel like I did my homework and I was ready to win the season. But of course, God had other plans. I wasn't supposed to beat Cory. I wasn't supposed to come close to beating Cory. I was trying to do the impossible, and I almost did.

It just sucked that I didn't win. Because had I won that third elimination, I would've felt like I won the season. I would've gone home the next day because there's nothing else left I could do, because I was playing in fear. That was literally my last hurrah, I was literally playing on my last leg. And I told him if he couldn't beat a one-legged dog, he didn't belong to be there anyway. I had some good commentary there at the end. I was pretty proud of myself with that, too.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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The Challenge: Battle of the Eras airs Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.