The popular podcast Challenge Mania has announced which competitors and epic moments from The Challenge: Total Madness are up for awards this year.
Now that Season 35 has been in the books for several months, the Challenge Mania Awards will honor top male and female players, Rookie of the Year, Best Elimination, and more.
Here’s what is known about the voting and some of the major nominees for this year’s awards.
What are the Challenge Mania Awards?
Challenge Mania is a podcast hosted by multiple-time Challenge winner Derrick Kosinski and co-host Scott Yager (a Syracuse alum, wrestling fan, and TV nut, per his Instagram bio).
Derrick and Scott host regularly-released podcast episodes that feature former and current competitors from MTV’s The Challenge.
Over the past several months, some of their guests have included Mike “The Miz” Mizanin, Tyler Duckworth, Tina Bridges, Casey Cooper, and Ace Amerson.
Due to their love of MTV’s reality competition series, the podcast is presenting awards for the recent season, Total Madness. There are categories for the top male and female competitors, as well as Rookie of the Year, and Elimination of the Year, among others.
As far as voting goes, it appears that only members of a Patreon page can receive and vote on a ballot. More details for voting are available at the Challenge Mania Patreon link in Scott Yager’s Instagram bio.
Categories include Elimination, Rookie of the Year
There are many categories to vote for based on The Challenge: Total Madness. However, we’ll take a look at several of the biggest awards for Challenge Mania. Podcast co-host Scott Yager posted several of the categories and nominees to his Instagram page.
The Rookie of the Year category may be an interesting battle between two former Big Brother stars. Kaycee Clark and Faysal “Fessy” Shafaat both made it to the Total Madness final. While neither won the top prize, it showed both could be strong competitors in the future. They’re joined by Jay Starrett, who made a name for himself in several eliminations, as well as Bayleigh Dayton and Chris “Swaggy C” Williams.
The Elimination of the Year category also brings some heavyweight contenders. Among them are those epic eliminations involving CT vs. Jay and Jenna vs. Tori, both of which may have surprised many viewers with dramatic results. Others in the category include Rogan vs. Nelson, Aneesa vs. Jenna, and Josh vs. Kyle.
Male and Female Competitor of the Year could be a lock for the two Total Madness winners. Johnny Bananas and Jenny West head up their respective categories with the other finalists also included.
Challenge Mania will honor the Male and Female TV Personality of the Year. For the males, it’s between Johnny Bananas, Wes Bergmann, Nelson Thomas, and Stephen Bear. One would think that it’ll be either Bananas or Wes winning this one, but you never know.
For the females, Aneesa Ferreira, Nany Gonzalez, Tula “Big T” Fazakerley, and Melissa Reeves will battle it out. Will Big T win as a fan-favorite based on her fun moments during Total Madness, or will a veteran take the win?
Other awards listed on Challenge Mania’s Patreon page include Best Commentary, Favorite Quote, and Couple, Duo, or Trio of the Year.
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Who was the best COUPLE or DUO or TRIO this year?! VOTE via the link in my bio. #ChallengeMania
There’s also a Moment of the Year category. The strong favorite is probably Nelson sacrificing himself for Cory by going into elimination. However, there’s also the Rogan vs. Jay showdown, Wes vs. Johnny Showdown, Bear Fire Extinguisher, and Aneesa Facial Reaction (to Jenn Lee’s “earthlings” remark).
Challenge Mania also has a category for fans to vote for their best podcast episode of the year with episodes featuring Sarah Rice, Kyle Christie, and Ace Amerson amongst category nominees.
Voting officially closes on Friday, November 20, at 8 pm ET, so stay tuned to see who takes him the awards!
The Challenge Total Madness is currently on hiatus at MTV.