This past Sunday, NFL quarterback Tom Brady achieved a seventh championship during his legendary career, this time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
That put him in some rather exclusive company, as Johnny “Bananas” Devanzio of The Challenge has also won seven titles on the MTV reality competition series.
Bananas took to Instagram and showed some recognition of Mr. Brady’s achievement, including welcoming him to the seven-time champions club in a rather interesting fashion.
Bananas welcomes Brady to champions club
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers easily defeated the Kansas City Chiefs this past Sunday in Super Bowl 55. Once it became official that Tom Brady was a seven-time champion, Johnny Bananas marched into the middle of his Super Bowl watch party decked out in protective fireman’s gear.
The Challenge star also had a flamethrower in hand as he stood in front of the television and began shouting.
“I don’t think there’s any f*****g question. There is no question anymore that Tom Brady is the greatest of all time. Welcome to the club, Tom!” Bananas yelled before shooting flames into the air over the heads of the partygoers.
“Johnny!” a female is overheard screaming as he continues the fiery demonstration.
“Welcome to the club, Tom Brady! The f*****g seven-time champions club!” Johnny yelled out before having some more fun with flames.
His IG post caption includes hashtags “KingoftheRings” and “goat” while also tagging Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Bucs.
Bananas’ celebratory video comes not long after one of his castmates, Chris “CT” Tamburello, posted a Brady highlight reel video on IG ahead of the Super Bowl. The 40-year-old CT was referring to the comments made about guys their ages trying to compete in the NFL or on The Challenge still.
Various Challenge castmates stopped by Bananas’ post to comment on the video, including Weston Bergmann, Lolo Jones, Georgia Harrison, and Josh Martinez.
“This is very dangerous,” Wes wrote as his joke comment on Bananas playing around with fire.
“Not nearly as dangerous as being a fire crotch,” Johnny replied to Wes’ comment.
“I love u,” Georgia Harrison commented.
“Fire Marshall Bill in the house ?,” commented Lolo Jones, while Josh Martinez commented with laughing emojis.
“Psycho,” Morgan Willett, who is Bananas’ girlfriend, wrote of his antics.
Bananas shares ‘who wore it better’ post
In addition to the flamethrower clip above, Bananas also shared a side-by-side look at he and Mr. Brady. In the photos they each are in an iconic pose to show off their seven rings.
Bananas is a real photo of himself, while the shot of Brady is a drawn image.
“Who wore it better?” Bananas asked in his caption to get commenters’ opinions.
While many people don’t consider reality TV competition quite the same as professional sports, Bananas achieved his seventh ring ahead of Tom Brady. That ring came from his win on The Challenge: Total Madness, which was Season 35 of the MTV show. Bananas called it better than his other six wins combined.
“As much as I told myself that I wasn’t over the hill, that this curse wasn’t dogging me down, I was one of my biggest doubters,” Bananas said in the video below of his seventh win.
“But here I am. I’m like 10, 12 years older than the guys I’m competing against, and I can still do it,” he added, which is quite similar to the commentary about Brady as he gets a year older each season he plays.
Some people have referred to The Challenge as the “fifth professional sport” in the United States, following baseball, basketball, football, and hockey. So comparisons between Bananas and Brady may exist.
Bananas is not among the cast members for The Challenge Season 36, which is called Double Agents. He’s been working on other ventures apart from the MTV reality series, including hosting NBC’s 1st Look series.
That said, many fans are hoping to see the 38-year-old Johnny Bananas return for Season 37 of the show and try to reclaim his spot as the G.O.A.T., by adding an eighth ring to his collection.
The Challenge: Double Agents airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on MTV.