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Wheel of Fortune contestant fails three times in spectacular fashion

A screengrab from a Wheel of Fortune episode in which a contestant failed to solve three puzzles in spectacular fashion.

It’s possible that pronunciation is this Wheel of Fortune contestant’s Achilles heel.

Last week, the game show Wheel of Fortune featured “College Week” in which students from different universities got to compete for cash prizes.

Indiana University honours student Julian Batts had three chances to solve puzzles, with a trip, a car, and even a chance at a million dollars up for grabs. He had no problem guessing the correct letters, but when it came to actually solving the puzzles, Batts just couldn’t get the words right — whether it was guessing the wrong words or simply mispronouncing them.

Batts had spun and landed on a chance at winning the $1-million prize, but completely botched the pronunciation of the puzzle in which all the letters had been turned. “Mythological Hero Achilles” was the answer to the puzzle, and even though Batts simply had to read the answer aloud, he couldn’t pronounce “Achilles” correctly, costing him his turn, and possibly the million-dollar prize.

Oh, but it gets worse.

Later in the game, Batts is on another roll when he picks up both ½ car vouchers as he continues to guess at letters in the puzzle. With two letters left to guess and the category being “Person”, the puzzle read: “The World’s Fastest _a_”. Batts decided to guess the letter “C”... probably assuming the remaining word was “car,” instead of the correct word, which was “man.” Hey Batts, since when is a car a person?!

That dreaded buzzer sounded and the perky opponent next to him solved the puzzle without hesitation.

But wait! Believe it or not, Batts then goes three-for-three with his puzzle-solving struggles.

It’s not as if he wasn't guessing the right letters. He just can’t seem to solve the puzzles! In his third puzzle fail, Batts was confident that “On-the-spot dicespin” was the answer. Wrong again, buddy. The answer was “On-the-spot decision.”

Even though Batts’ terrible puzzle solving guesses cost him a car, a trip, and even a shot at a million bucks, he still walked out a winner. He managed to win the game and even make it to the bonus round. We're pretty sure he'll never mispronounce "Achilles" again, though!