According to Wes Bergmann, The Challenge: Battle For a New Champion gives viewers all the entertainment they need based on a recent episode.
The three-time show winner may have retired during the USA 2 spinoff but still provides his thoughts on each episode.
That includes MTV’s newest season, which premiered shortly after USA 2’s finale aired on CBS.
In a recent social media message, Wes showed his support for Season 39 despite many fans being unhappy with the lack of regular stars on the show.
Instead, it features a cast of individuals who have appeared on at least one season of The Challenge but have never won the show.
Taking to Twitter, Wes wrote, “Out of curiosity what didn’t this episode have?” and listed each aspect the recent MTV episode featured.
He included a checklist with the words “betrayal, petty, meltdown, new couple, great elim, and fight” and wrote underneath it, “It’s time we start admitting this season has it all.”
Many fans might disagree with Wes’ Season 39 praise
While Wes seems satisfied with what he’s seeing from Battle For a New Champion, displeased fans fired back at the MTV OG with their gripes about the new season.
“First time I am disagreeing with my Wes. This episode was missing you. Top 4 male contenders in the history of the Challenge. You, Jordan, Bananas, & CT!” one commenter said.
Another brought up that “the humor is not on the same level” regarding the cast and the sound bites they give in confessional interviews or elsewhere.
One comment went further, calling Season 39 the “worst ever” for MTV’s The Challenge. They listed veteran stars they felt should’ve been in the cast that never won a season before, including Kam Williams, Cory Wharton, Kylie Christie, and Nelson Thomas.
The Challenge Season 39, Episode 5 had the most viewers so far
While Wes might enjoy watching the show he loves from afar, it doesn’t appear it’s attracting as many viewers as in previous seasons. That could be due to a general lack of veteran stars in the main cast.
A select number of former champs will show up briefly for episodes to battle one of the main cast members in an elimination. If they win, they eliminate that person from the season and take home $10,000 of the cast’s overall prize pool.
Unfortunately, those veterans and champs won’t stick around after winning. Many fans feel it would have been better if that twist was also worked into Season 39, although it wouldn’t fit with the Battle For a New Champion theme.
As of this writing, The Challenge Wiki shows that the recent episode Wes praised recorded 390,000 viewers when it aired on MTV. It was the highest of any episode so far in the season, likely due to the arrival of the first champion at The Arena, Jordan Wisely.
The episode before it only had 190,000 viewers, which is the worst viewership number of the season. No episode before that had more than 340,000 viewers, a far cry from previous seasons, where some episodes recorded over 500,000 and up to a million viewers.
The good news is that viewers will see more of their favorite Challenge stars arrive in upcoming episodes, including Chris “CT” Tamburello, Cara Maria Sorbello, Laurel Stucky, and Darell Taylor.
Unfortunately, they won’t be joining the cast after their elimination appearances, leaving it up to a new cast of competitors to carry the season.
The Challenge: Battle For a New Champion airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on MTV.