The first photo is from Wes’s small wedding where he had Lacey, Rachel, and Melinda from his Real World days there, his best friend from Austin, Nehemiah, officiated the wedding, and Devin, a person he met on his last real season of the Challenge, was also there. Devin and the rest of those people debuted on MTV over a decade apart and yet he is there for Wes’ wedding along with them. The second photo is from Wes’ bachelor party weekend, with his long-time friend Brad (last time they did a season together was the Ruins), Louie Vito from Champs vs Pros 1, and Josh Murray from Champs vs Stars 2. He talked about working on projects on Challenge Mania with Louise Hazel and Boobie Gibson. The craziest part is Wes is described as this Machiavellian manipulator who is only in the game for himself, yet he creates these legitimate relationships and has adapted well. Wes has always been willing to work with anyone and the allies he has had in the past include Devin, Zach, Thomas Buell, Aneesa, Jay, Averey, Adam Kuhn, and Beth. That is the most Hodge podge group of people in Challenge history. Hell, he even worked with Leroy, and the two HATED each other.

Circling back to Johnny Bananas, his unwillingness to adapt in some ways has made him a star in that he is able to play up the “underdog” card, however, he is not an underdog because of those around him, he is an underdog because he refuses to adapt.

GAMEPLAY

I think Bananas makes some of the best short-term moves in Challenge history. His ability to strong-arm weaker minded people like Jenna and Aneesa on Bloodlines into making moves to further his game displays a master at work. Revealing that Cara Maria was hooking up with Thomas to Abram was a dirty move — but a move which ultimately kept him out of elimination as it geared Abram’s focus towards eliminating Thomas. He has these strokes of brilliance which are incredible to watch. However, his long-term gameplay has, in many ways, become too stale especially in the evolving era of the Challenge.

The Challenge used to be very confused on the daily challenge element with eliminations coming secondary. With team bank accounts and fewer eliminations, players could relax knowing that they were a veteran and they performed well, they would have a spot in the final with their friends. This type of gameplay existed for some time after seasons became pairs and individuals. In the modern era, you do not have to be good at daily challenges to succeed. Ashley Mitchell has no incredibly outward skills besides maybe puzzles when it comes to missions and competitions, however, she has done well enough while playing a highly political and social game to win twice in an era in which winning is very difficult.

Bananas likes to link up with the other veterans, avoid big moves and avoid creating an obvious target, and slither your way to the end. In the old version of the game, it was the safest and most effective way to play the game and it is the reason he became the best player in Challenge history. Were all of his wins pretty? No. Some were even pretty luck, however, he understood that getting to a final meant he had a chance to win.

The modern-day Bananas plays a pretty boring game and relies too heavily on the past and pushes too much on future seasons when operating in the present. During Vendettas, when Tony was playing around with the idea of throwing Bananas into elimination against Devin, Bananas told Tony if he throws him in, he will try to eliminate him in every challenge going forward. He literally threatened Tony with future challenges versus actually playing the game he was involved in. Bananas’ rigid game has come to haunt him in recent years as younger players are not afraid to take shots at him. Devin, Shane, and the Lavender Ladies are individually nowhere near as good as he is competitively — unfortunately for Bananas, he’s not good enough for them to be afraid of him. If anything, Bananas is helping the other strong players in the game by not making big moves, as he always remains the biggest target of his alliance while being (possibly) the most beatable one in an elimination. On Free Agents, Bananas had the house against him and he won because he was in his prime and was able to win by dominating challenges and eliminations. He is not the same guy at all anymore. His partner was Tony, the best player from the previous season who was coming off a spinoff win — they lost two elimination and couldn’t even make the final. Bananas’ prime is over and he NEEDS to evolve.

CT and Wes are also victims of their own gameplay. Despite making it to the final on Dirty 30, CT played a bad game. He won almost every daily challenge and had influence over others on who to vote into elimination. CT would preach about wanting to run the final with the strongest people because he did not want to end up with a weak partner during the final if it came down to teams or partners. He went to a final with two of the strongest players in Challenge history and finished in 3rd. The 3rd place finish giving him 15k is nice — but not so nice when you consider it is 435k less than first. On the other side of the coin, Wes attempts to eliminate the best players from the game before the final in order to give himself the best chance to win the final. He makes low risk investments in rookie players to possibly payoff big and then makes big risk moves with power to get a big pay off. Wes has been able to get Bananas, Evan, and Darrell eliminated by making big moves, and he has also seen his game completely blow up in his face. Even though he is a legend, Wes only has four finals appearances in his career. If he played a safer game like Bananas, he probably would’ve reached more finals. Does Wes become an icon if he does not play the game as himself?

Everyone can be a good competitor when given the chance. Preston on Free Agents, Tonya on Inferno 3, and Sarah Greyson on the original Gauntlet shows that anyone can do well when given the opportunity to perform. Making big moves turns players into legends. Kam playing the entire house to save her friends and pick the players she wanted to go into elimination was an example of good physical player displaying they can run the game politically too. Tony and Kailah showed they had balls when they gave Devin his chance to take out Bananas, and Devin finally gave himself some legitimacy by calling his shot and doing work. Vendettas was a fun season due to the influx of good rookies forcing people to play the game and establish new relationships. Dirty 30 was a game of veterans targeting rookies to the point where a three man alliance was forced to take on each other and then one of them taking on the rest of the vets.

Conclusion

Johnny Bananas is the STAR of the Challenge. He has people tuning in just for him and with that alone, everything I’ve written is in many ways muted because it does not reflect a significant portion of “Challenge Fans”.

Similar to Russell Westbrook, Michael Vick, or Allen Iverson, Johnny Bananas is a great player whose style of game-play vaults him into star status and will give the show a raised floor where you can at least rely on constructing a show around him, however, as much as he raises the floor, he also puts a ceiling on its potential.