The Challenge All Stars: Rivals Preview

The Challenge, America’s fifth major sport and greatest reality show, is a reality competition show featuring physical challenges between stars of other reality shows. Starting with The Real World and Road Rules, it has now branched out to casting from many shows, most notably Big Brother and Survivor. Contestants return across multiple seasons, meaning many have been fan favorites for decades. To capitalize on this, the spinoff, The Challenge All Stars, was created, which was a shorter term commitment and more appealing to veterans who had retired. On this season, the theme will be rivals. Let’s take a look at the pairs, in a first reaction stream of consciousness.

This season will premiere on Wednesday, January 29th on MTV. I will be recapping episodes after they air, as well as providing updates Challenge cast on other reality shows, currently Wes on The Traitors

ADAM AND STEVE NOT ADAM AND EVE. Their all stars 4 fight was a huge overreaction, but they can probably make up. They should be fine, but this doesn’t feel like a serious threat.

Bananas vs Wes without Bananas or Wes. This might be the best team this season, and Devin should be able to keep them from getting too many votes to go in. I’d be pretty surprised if they didn’t make the final (They will now get purged in episode 1).

This team is going to be unbeatable in some challenges and struggle not to come in last in others. Strength and Running they should be great, puzzles and skill challenges could get rough. They’re always going to be at risk of Faysal causing some drama to get them sent in, and he has plenty of enemies in this cast.

Apologies to this team but I cannot give serious consideration to Dario until he does literally anything in this game. Ashley is probably most notable for getting yelled at by Frank in Battle of the Seasons, but have another team that’s full RW San Diego could help.

I’ll be rooting for them. I don’t know how they’ll do in any competitions, but they will be shit stirrers and they will fight as long as they can. Corey plays like every season is his last, so he will burn bridges if he needs to.

Another team that could be fun, but I have trouble seeing them stick around long. I don’t think they’ll have a ton of allies and they won’t be that scary in eliminations.

These 2 were great the last time they played, but it’s been years. This rivalry again came down to Frank didn’t think anyone on his team in Battle of the Seasons was any good. This is the only pair that has won a season together before, and if they’re as good as they were this could be a great team.

A real shame this couldn’t be Jordan and Turbo, but that might’ve ended with someone actually dying. Turbo is the scariest person in this game, both athletically and in how likely they are to murder someone. They’re rivals because they got in a fight about Bananas, which really is about 50% of the drama on the Challenge.

THE RETURN OF SMASHLEY. Would not want to go up against these 2 in an elimination, but I’ll need to see Aneesa win a final to believe she can at this point. It’s too bad there’s no other Ashley enemies on the show, but she can certainly always make more.

Even for reality tv, Beth was pretty out of line on this one, going on tv and saying Jonna was cheating on her husband, which as far as was ever shown didn’t happen. Jonna has been the breakout star of All Stars, but I think being teamed with Beth will be too much to overcome.

At this stage in her career, Veronica can’t be the one carrying the load from her Challenge partner, and it’s hard to have a partner that needs to be carried more than Katie. Their rivalry also stems from the fact that Katie is bad at the Challenge.

If these 2 can get to a final they could really make some noise. KellyAnne has been having a hell of a run on All Stars, and mostly got screwed on All Stars 1 because all the women had to get paired with Big Easy once. Sylvia doesn’t have much experience but when she’s been there she’s always done well.

I think it’s beautiful they snuck an exes pair into Rivals. I think my strongest endorsement of this team is that Cara Maria and Laurel won’t be on this season, so maybe Nicole will have less drama.