By: John Powell – GlobalTV.com

Whew! That was close.

In the closest finale vote in Survivor history, Wendell Holland, the furniture company owner from Pennsylvania, become the latest sole Survivor.

Wendell beat out his alliance partner Domenick Abbate by one vote to secure the win. For the first time in Survivor history, the final tribal council vote was tied with Chris Noble, Libby Vincek, Desiree Afuye, Jenna Bowman and Michael Yerger voting for Domenick while Chelsea Townsend, Kellyn Bechtold, Angela Perkins, Sebastian Noel and Donathan Hurley voting for Wendell.

To break the tie, finalist Laurel Johnson joined the jury and was the sole deciding vote.

“I was very confident but I knew that Dom had a tremendous relationship with her also. It did feel good knowing Laurel was the one casting that tie-breaking vote,” Wendell told Survivor host/executive producer Jeff Probst during the reunion show.

 

For Laurel, the burden of that deciding vote was tremendous but there was one factor that separated Dom and Wendell’s game.

“It was an impossible decision. They both played a great game. They were both deserving of being the winner. That is what made it so hard. They played a similar strategic game and they made the same moves so for me it came down to Wendell’s social game,” said Laurel.

Domenick knew his goose was cooked the minute the tie was announced on the island where the votes were counted for the first time since the first season, Survivor: Borneo.

 

“I knew three seconds after you (Jeff Probst) said it was a tie that it was a wrap for me,” laughed Domenick.

Angela finished fourth, Donathan was fifth and Sebastian was sixth.

The 37th season was announced as Survivor: David vs. Goliath. A tribe of underdogs will compete against a tribe of overachievers. Professional wrestler Johnny Mundo (AKA: John Morrison and Johnny Impact) will be on the Goliath Tribe. Survivor: David vs. Goliath was filmed in Fiji and will premiere Fall 2018 on Global.