14 Seasons: Fresh Meat (3rd place), The Duel (Win), The Ruins, Fresh Meat II, Rivals (2nd place), Battle of the Exes, Battle of the Seasons, Rivals II (Win), Battle of the Exes II, Rivals III, War of the Worlds (3rd place), War of the Worlds 2, Total Madness

14–8 Elimination Record

25 Challenge Wins

Daily Challenges- 8/10

Eliminations- 9/10

Finals- 8/10

Politics- 7.5/10

Nobody in Challenge history has had a more up-and-down career than Wes.

While the highs of Wes’ career have been very high, the lows have also been very low, which makes him one of the hardest players to assess in these rankings.

Wes is the elimination king with 14 career victories, including five exile wins on Fresh Meat and an excruciating victory over Derrick in Pole Wrestle on The Duel (which in my opinion is the greatest elimination of all-time).

But there’s also a reason he was in so many eliminations.

I don’t fault him for going in five times on Fresh Meat because he was an easy scapegoat for being from the Real World: Austin cast, or for being targeted first on Battle of the Seasons in a game full of rookies, but his political games on The Ruins, Fresh Meat II and Exes were downright horrendous.

Although he was never going to be high on the totem pole with JEK and Derrick around on The Ruins, he didn’t make it any easier on himself by not telling anyone he was coming on the show, trying to throw the first mission and constantly blowing up on people in the house.

On Fresh Meat II he and Evelyn had an army of followers, but a series of miscues (throwing in Brandon/Katelynn against CJ/Sydney, sacrificing Danny, protecting Jenn and Ryan over the people solidly in his alliance) coupled with Kenny and Laurel’s dominance caused his game to implode.

And on Exes he bizarrely declared war on Bananas when he and Camila were the power couple, leading to Wes/Mandi going into the first two eliminations.

Still, give credit where credit is due — Wes’ Exes II political game is one of the best in the history of the show, as he had nearly every team thinking he was their tight ally.

He had strong alliances with Sarah, Zach, and the rookies, and his move to mindfuck Leroy by convincing him to send in Zach was an absolute thing of beauty.

His next best game came on War of the Worlds, where he was able to get his nemesis Bananas eliminated second, tried (mostly in vain) to break up the UK alliance, and only saw one elimination the entire season.

On The Duel he smartly aligned with the people at the bottom of the totem pole (Nehemiah, Beth, Svetlana and Aneesa) and got Evan to agree to face CT, guaranteeing one of the two best competitors would go home. On Rivals II his relationship with the girls helped keep him and CT out of elimination for the entire season.

As a competitor, Wes is clearly the elimination king of The Challenge and is one of the best swimmers of all time, but for the most part he hasn’t been elite in daily challenges and has had some bad cardio performances, most notably in his Fresh Meat II exile and in the Rivals final (although he and Kenny were screwed out of a championship by having their huge lead after the first day get whittled down to just a minute on the second day).

Even some of his best competitive seasons are easy to nitpick. Carrying Casey to five elimination wins on Fresh Meat looks incredibly impressive, until you realize they had by far the least amount of weight and had an advantage of knowing the exile course.

He was the first solo male champion on The Duel, but he was either the third or fourth best guy that season in dailies behind Evan, CT and arguably Brad.

Wes really had never dominated daily challenges until War of the Worlds, where he made six tribunals despite having a merely decent partner in Dee for the first part of the game. He also had solid showings in dailies on Rivals II or Exes II, where he won three missions apiece with CT and Theresa, and on Total Madness when he won three dailies in a row.

Wes’ 14 elimination wins are most for any person in Challenge history. But if you assess them, how many of his victories other than against Derrick are that impressive?

His other wins: Danny/Evelyn, Melinda/Ryan, Johanna/Jesse, Tonya/Jonnie, Shane/Linette, Chet, Nick Brown (it’s a movement), Tyrie/Davis, Ty/Brandon, Nate/Priscilla, Jamie/Kelly Anne, Nate/Christina and Zach/Zahida.

The only decent teams/competitors out of those victories are Tonya/Jonnie (who had an insane 140 more pounds of weight), Shane/Linette (who had 58 more pounds of weight), Ty/Brandon (Wes beat Brandon in the second rope climb), Jamie/Kelly Anne and Zach/Zahida, and none of those teams were even close to elite.

Meanwhile, his losses are to Cohutta, Ev/Luke, Leroy/Naomi, Big Easy, Leroy/Nia,Dario/Nicole, Bear and Bananas. Leroy is a beast in physical eliminations, Bananas is a legend and losing to Big Easy in Hall Brawl is nothing to be embarrassed about, but the other four losses were squarely on him.

Wes got beat straight up by Cohutta on The Ruins (although he had his team trying to mess him up), he gassed out in the exile on Fresh Meat II and he was slower in the Tunnel Vision elimination than Dario.

He gets a bit of a pass for me losing to Bear, given he was sick and he had no idea that he would be going in, but still a loss is a loss.

It should also be noted that although I’m not factoring Champs vs. into my rankings, he’s been stellar in that series, posting a 5–0 elimination record with two third-place finishes.

Going through Wes’ career, in my estimation he has six great seasons (Fresh Meat, The Duel, Rivals, Rivals II, Exes II, War of the Worlds), four average seasons (The Ruins, Fresh Meat II, Rivals III, Total Madness) and three duds (Exes, Battle of the Seasons and War of the Worlds 2). That’s basically an even split of good versus not-so-good seasons, and nobody in my rankings has as spotty of a track record.

He makes my top-10 because most of the guys below him never had as great of successes, but he doesn’t get put higher because the guys above him never had as many failures.

I value consistency in a challenger, and that just hasn’t been Wes’ strong suit, especially politically. While he’s a threat to win any season he’s on whether he’s in shape or not, he’s also liable to get himself thrown into the first elimination and go home early.

Nobody has a more up-and-down career than Wes, and while his highs were extremely high, nobody else ahead of him on this list had as many lows.

Rankings

25. Nelson Thomas

24. Paulie Calafiore

23. Leroy Garrett

22. Frank Sweeney

21. Jamie Murray

20. Tyler Duckworth

19. Hunter Barfield

18. Timmy Beggy

17. Dan Setzler

16. Zach Nichols

15. Abram Boise

14. Mike Mizanin

13. Theo Vonkurnatowski

12. Brad Fiorenza

11. Alton Williams

10. Wes Bergmann

9. Darrell Taylor

8. Derrick Kosinski

7. Kenny Santucci

6. Mark Long

5. Jordan Wiseley

4. Evan Starkman

3. Landon Lueck

2. CT Tamburello

1. Johnny Devenanzio