What could have been a top 10 season, turned out to be a dark chapter in the book called: The Challenge. Season 18 of the Challenge, The Ruins, was a super hyped up season before it was released. A team full of challenge Champs facing off against rookies and veterans alike, all who had never won before, the Challengers.

Some of those challengers should’ve had a win, like Brad, Adam and Diem of the Gauntlet 3. So for some this season was supposed to be a revenge tour, for others it was supposed to be the start of a strong career. The only Challenger that turned this season in something positive was Sarah, who completed the final and turned into a mainstay for the following 7 years. We all know how her career ended, so let’s not talk about that.

She looks so young and unrobbed here!

On the other side we had the Champions. A team of elite players, washed-up players and players who should’ve never become a champion (Looking at you, Ibis). The team was divided from the start, when Wes told noone he would be on the season, but then showed up to a house with his archnemesis (Kenny), his ex-fiancee (Johanna) and his current girlfriend (Kellyanne). Besides that, he was also joined by someone he screwed in his last challenge season (Evan) and the guy he beat in that final based on a penalty shoot-out (Brad). All but all, an interesting season for Wes. And that’s why this season was so hyped up at the beginning! Wes brought something this season that we haven’t really seen ever again. He was the true antagonist of this season and everything that happened in the early episodes was about him. Until he lost an elimination for the first time ever. After that happened the season got slower, more boring and less competitive (since the dominating Champs lost their anchor). From this point on it became a complete landslide for the Champs, even after losing Tonya and Darrell through fights.

Wes and Johanna discussing if they should sell the house or not (in a friendly way!)

The format of this season was amazing. A two team challenge like we were used to, between two groups of people with different goals. The champs had their pride at stake, the challengers had to prove themselves. The individual bank account brought an interesting twist to the game, because players would volunteer to go into elimination to make more money. People would stop playing a scared game, even Darrell wanted to go into eliminations, when in his first 4 seasons he only went into 1!

This is why i want to see a second season of the Ruins, but this time with good teams.

Introducing the Ruins 2:

Let’s start of with the teams. On the original season they went for teams of 14, 7 male and 7 female. That is a bit low in my opinion, but may be needed because of the amount of champs that are available. In the modern challenge days a lot less champions get crowned, because there are barely any team challenges anymore. The last 3 team challenges all had only 4 winners even, while the Inferno 1 crowned EIGHT champions! So let’s have a look at the most realistic champion team we can assemble.

To start with the girls:

We don’t have a lot of recent female champions. Cara, Dee and Ashley are the only recent winners who still compete. Camilla is pretty much banned and Sarah will probably never return. The most recent winner after that is Laurel, who won 6 years ago. This means we need to get some old school players in. Sadly, not a lot of them have been open about coming back. Kendall and Tori Hall were almost casted for season 33, so they are willing to compete. Veronica also did 3 seasons recently. We might be able to assemble a decent team!

Pretty much guaranteed:

- Cara Maria

- Dee

- Ashley M

Pretty likely to compete:

- Laurel

- Veronica

Longshots:

- Emily

- Ashley K

- Kendall

- Tori H

Near impossible, but maybe for a big chunk of money:

- Rachel R

- Evelyn

- Coral

The most realistic team of girls would be:

Cara, Dee, Ashley M, Laurel, Kendall, Tori H and Veronica, making it once again a 7 person per gender team. Let’s just be hopeful and say Emily joins this season, then we can make the teams a bit bigger than on the Ruins 1.

Emily on the universal challenge in 2019. It wasn’t a real challenge, but it can give us hope. (LOOK AT THOSE LEGS)

The boys:

Getting 8 guys will be easier, and we can even choose to keep some out. We have a lot of champs in the current season, with CT, Wes, Johnny, Jordan and Rogan. We also have Zach and Hunter who competed recently. Then we have Turbo who also competed recently, but who i’d rather not see on a team challenge ever again. Besides those guys, there are some legends that have returned recently and may do so again: Darrel, Derrick and Brad. Lastly, Mark Long and Alton also have said something about wanting to compete again if the season is worth it, so who knows?

Pretty much guaranteed:

- Johnny

- Wes

- CT

- Jordan

- Rogan

- Zach

Pretty likely to compete:

- Darrell

- Derrick

- Brad

Longshots:

- Mark

- Alton

- Hunter

- Turbo

See, this is a lot easier! I want to have a bit of an age difference in the team, not have this be a full OG team (i want that in another season i might write about). I’d like to see where Rogan and Zach would fall in this team. Are they the first to be put into elimination or will they be respected? Jordan, Johnny and Wes together brings some sort of rivalry in the team, even though it seems to be dug under the ground nowadays. I’d only want CT back if he is actually fit, i’m kinda done with dad bod CT going out early (FR, WotW1 and TM). Let’s finish it up with Darrell, Derrick and Brad.

Let’s see how this british bastard would do on a team filled with legends.

So the Champions would be:

- Johnny (6x)

- Darrell (4x)

- Veronica (3x)

- Derrick (3x)

- Jordan (3x)

- Cara (2x)

- Ashley M (2x)

- Wes (2x)

- Tori H (2x)

- Laurel (1x)

- Emily (1x)

- Kendall (1x)

- Dee (1x)

- Rogan (1x)

- Brad (1x)

- Zach (1x)

The Challengers:

Just look at this group of rookies and misfits. Let’s never assemble a team like this ever again!

The original Challengers team was terrible. The only kinda good competitors were Brad, Diem, Kellyanne and Sarah, where Diem went out on episode 1 and Brad got disqualified because of a fight. Let’s build a team that can actually CHALLENGE the Champions. 8 male and 8 female, a combination of rookies, vets and OG’s.

The guys:

Let’s start of with some british blood: Joss, Theo and Kyle have all come in second on a season, so they want to get revenge and win this one. Bear is always good tv, so let’s put him in aswell. Do we want young bucks? Probably not. Some old school male challengers are hard to get. Leroy would definitely be one. Maybe Cohutta? Maybe Danny? (just kidding!). We can finish the team up with some newer people, like Fessy, Jay and Paulie. This would make it 9, so i’m dropping Jay, seeing as we already have a smaller guy in Cohutta.

The girls:

On the Ruins 1 the girls were the biggest problem. Having Casey AND Shauvon on one team was just unacceptable. Let’s get some heavy hitters in here. Tori D, Jenny, Kam, and Georgia have all shown some good stuff up to this point. Mattie is physically intimidating for alot of the girls, so she’d also be good. The biggest challenger of them all is Nany, she’s been challenging the challenge for 10 years by now. So she has to be in there. I’d like to see her holy alliance join her on a team challenge.

The Challenger team:

- Leroy (4 finals)

- Jenna (3 finals)

- Tori D (2 finals)

- Paulie (2 finals)

- Kam (2 finals)

- Joss (1 final)

- Theo (1 final)

- Kyle (1 final)

- Mattie (1 final)

- Nany (1 final)

- Kailah (1 final)

- Georgia (1 final)

- Cohutta (0 finals)

- Fessy (0 finals)

- Bear (0 finals)

- Jenny (0 finals)

Because these people can still become champions we need some back-ups. We only need 1 per gender, because that’s how many champions Total Madness will create. Jay and Nicole Z would be my ideal alternates.

The seasons stays the same: individual bank accounts, a male and female elimination every episode, full on two team challenge. There will be 7 eliminations, so there will always be atleast 1 male or female left per team (if nobody gets dq’d). Only this time i have no idea who would win. Let me know who you see as the winners and if you have challengers you’d rather see on this season than this cast.