In the reality competition universe, there’s one man who stands above them all as the most prolific personality of MTV’s The Challenge: John “Johnny Bananas” Devenanzio. Although CBS purists are getting their first taste of him on The Challenge: USA season 2, some longtime fans of the franchise have known the reality star for nearly two decades.
Recommended VideosFrom hilarious jabs to cut-throat decision-making, Johnny Bananas exemplifies The Challenge and its rough-around-the-edges nature.
Hate him or love him, Johnny Bananas has continually helped build the franchise since his debut in 2006 and is one of the biggest stars it’s produced. He’s also its most winningest Challenge contestant ever by hoisting seven flagship championships.
So, when did the 41-year-old get his start on The Challenge, and how did it go? That’s what I’ll tackle in this article — and spoiler alert: it didn’t go well for the “Banana Man.”
Let’s get into The Duel!
Johnny Bananas took part in The Duel after his time on The Real World: Key West
Johnny Bananas made his MTV debut as a 22-year-old cast member on The Real World: Key West in 2006 alongside the likes of Paula Meronek and Tyler Duckworth — two other reality TV stars who’d eventually become Challenge champions as well.
Later that year, Johnny, Paula, Tyler, and Svetlana Shusterman (another Key West housemate) joined 16 other notables from The Real World, Road Rules, and Fresh Meat for the franchise’s 13th season: The Duel. This was when the reality competition series was called Real World/Road Rules Challenge and it was solely fueled by MTV talent.
It was a season stacked with contestants who remain some of the biggest names to ever grace The Challenge, including Chris “CT” Tamburello, Diem Brown, Aneesa Ferreira, Wes Bergmann, Tina Barta, Evan Starkman, Beth Stolarczyk, Kenny Santucci, and Derrick Kosinski.
Unfortunately for Johnny Bananas, every name listed above lasted longer than him in his inaugural season. In fact, he was the first competitor eliminated.
The Duel marked the first-ever Challenge season that was an individual-based game. Whether it was teams or pairs, a contestant’s fate had always been linked to someone else up until season 13.
The 10 men and 10 women were a part of their own bracket, and although the daily challenges routinely had players competing in male-female duos, they were on their own when it came to elimination rounds and eventually, the final challenge.
Being a rookie player, The Duel’s format didn’t bode well for Johnny Bananas and the rest of his Key West housemates as they were the newest members of the MTV family relative to the other players. It’s a Challenge staple; the veterans typically attempt to eliminate newbies first.
Ahead of every daily challenge, host TJ Lavin would announce whether it was male or female elimination day. Then, the challenge would produce a male and female winner. The Duel’s first daily mission had the men on the chopping block, and Eric Banks and Robin Hibbard came out on top.
Because it was a men’s day, Eric earned immunity from “The Duel” — the season’s elimination grounds.
Then, Eric started the selection process, something that was followed for the entirety of the game. In schoolyard fashion, Eric was tasked with picking one woman who would then pick one man — so on and so forth until one man was left standing without being chosen.
Well, the final two men not picked were Johnny Bananas and Tyler, while their ex-roommate Svetlana was charged with choosing between them. As history has it, she becked the Banana Man over, stating she had more confidence Tyler would survive a loser-go-home game over Johnny.
So, since he was the last man, Tyler was instantly nominated for elimination.
In a fun twist, the player in the hot seat was charged with calling out someone to meet them in the sand. Besides the daily challenge winner (Eric), Tyler had the entire male roster to choose from. But, he decided to duel Johnny.
Tyler then selected a card. All in all, The Duel featured four different elimination games — “I Can,” “Pole Wrestle,” “Push Me,” and “Ascender” — and a game was always selected at random ahead of the contest. As fate had it, Tyler drew the I Can card and the cast made their way to The Duel; and Johnny Bananas’ final competition of the season.
I Can was a simple game. Each player would take their turn saying how much of a certain object they could lift. Then, their opponent would either one-up them or challenge them to lift the number they declared.
For Bananas and Tylers’ battle, they were faced with dozens of watermelons. And once Tyler said he could lift 31 of them, Johnny Bananas challenged him to do it.
“I’m thinking in the back of my mind 31 watermelon, that’s a lot of watermelon,” Bananas said in a confessional.
The fruit was then loaded into a crate and Tyler easily lifted them for five seconds — the time he had to hit to be victorious. That’s all it took for Johnny’s campaign for $150,000 to go up in flames.
His time in Brazil ended. But, his tenure as a Challenge star was still in its infancy. And after more than 20 seasons and several trophies, Johnny Bananas is still going strong.
Johnny’s longtime rival Wes Bergmann earned his first championship on The Duel, and they’re both currently competing on The Challenge: USA
In some interesting Challenge lore, The Duel was also an important show for Wes Bergmann — a man as synonymous with the franchise as Bananas. Season 13 was Wes’ second stint on the reality competition show after starring on The Real World: Austin.
And in complete opposite fortune, Bananas was the first person to go home while Wes won The Duel alongside Jodi Weatherton on the female side.
Although their interaction was limited in The Duel, Johnny and Wes would develop the biggest rivalry in the franchise’s history. But, they settled their beef during season 35’s Total Madness and now work together every time they’re on a Challenge. They’re both currently competing on The Challenge: USA season 2.
And spoiler alert: when Wes thought he was going home after his elimination match with Dusty Harris wrapped during episode 6 (the most recent episode at the time of this article’s publication), Johnny Bananas embraced him in what was a fun and slightly heartwarming moment between the two Challenge icons.
TJ later revealed that Wes was the winner. He then proceeded to abandon his Green team and join Bananas’ Blue squad.
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