MTV pulled out all the stops for season 40 of The Challenge, declaring the latest installment of the long-running show the “Battle of the Eras.” So much so that star Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio was nearly at a loss when Us Weekly asked if anyone was missing from the cast.
“Everyone I’m really close to is pretty much all there,” the 42-year-old Challenge vet told Us in an exclusive interview ahead of the Wednesday, August 14, premiere. He paused before admitting, “[But] I wish Wes was there.”
While Wes Bergmann has claimed that he has retired from the show, Johnny claims his frenemy is just “taking a hiatus.”
“Wes isn’t going anywhere. Are you kidding me? He just needs to get his mojo back. Wes currently has an APB out for his mojo because he lost it,” he continued. “How do you have a battle of the eras with all this era representation without Wes? He’s been doing it for longer than I have. He’s just one of the biggest names. It was a bummer that he wasn’t there [but] next time.”
When asked about former costar Sarah Rice — who Johnny infamously opted not to split the $275,00 prize with after they won the final during the 2016 season — Johnny is less convinced she’ll return. “She’s thrown in her hat. I think I put her into forced retirement,” he quipped.
The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras divides the cast into four groups. Era 1 includes cast members from seasons 1-10: Tina Barta, Katie Cooley, Aneesa Fereira, Brad Fiorenza, Derrick Kosinski, Mark Long, Rachel Robinson, CT Tamburello, Darrell Taylor and Jodi Weatherton.
Johnny is part of Era 2 (seasons 11-20) with Derek Chavez, Nehemiah Clark, KellyAnne Judd, Ryan Kehoe, Aviv Melmed, Brandon Nelson, Emily Schromm, Cara Maria Sorbello and Laurel Stucky. Era 3 (seasons 21-30) features Tori Deal, Amanda Garcia, Leroy Garrett, Jonna Mannion, Nia Moore, Tony Raines, Averey Tressler, Devin Walker, Cory Wharton and Jordan Wiseley.
Finally, Era 4 rounds out the group with Paulie Calafiore, Theo Campbell, Kaycee Clark, Michele Fitzgerald, Horacio Gutiérrez Jr., Olivia Kaiser, Josh Martinez, Nurys Mateo, Jenny West and Kyland Young who made their debuts on season 31 or beyond.
Johnny gave Us insight into how the different dynamics worked in the house.
“Era 1, the average age is somewhere in the 40s. And as someone who’s in their 40s, I know it’s like, ‘I don’t want to be up [all night], I’ve done all that. We’ve done staying up till 2, 3 a.m. partying every night. It gets old.’ There’s no worse place to wake up hungover than in The Challenge house. We don’t bounce back the way that we used to either,” he said. “So you have Era 4 that they don’t give a s–t. I They’re still in the party phase. If Era 1 one was the old married couple, Era 4 is the college kids that are still sowing their oats. So no surprise that they had drama right away and they were the ones that were up partying, drinking, hooking up, doing all that. someone’s gotta do that though!”
While Era 4 got messy in the house, Era 1 was dealing with the fallout from the outside world.
“Listening to Brad, Derrick and CT all sitting there talking about their divorces, their ex-wives and how miserable divorce was — they’re looking at me, like ‘Dude, don’t ever get married.’ I’m like, ‘Guys, I don’t plan on doing it anytime now after listening to the conversation you guys have had,’” Johnny told Us. “What Era 4 is concerned about is just completely different.”
Casting men and women from different eras also brings a ton of history into the game, with Cara Maria making her first appearance since 2019 alongside off-again, on-again boyfriend Paulie.
“Anytime you have either Cara or Paulie in a house, they are going to be very disruptive forces. Coming into this season, I don’t really know where I stood. Paulie and I, we’ve had our differences in the past, but we pretty much squashed our beef after The Challenge USA. However, I hadn’t spoken to Cara in years,” Johnny told Us. “We’re on the same team, so we’re gonna have to work together. But at the same time, we’ve both been known to potentially sabotage a win here and there to try and jeopardize the other one. I just didn’t know what the vibe was gonna be, but anytime you have any couple in the house, they’re gonna be a target because they’re automatically gonna be having each other’s back, especially because they’re from two different Eras.”
Aside from romantic history, there’s endless feuds across this season of the show.
“I was excited to see what the fallout between Olivia and Nurys was gonna be after season 39. ’cause that was pretty epic,” Johnny teased. “Anytime you have Amanda in the house, you know that she is going to be throwing, like, proverbial Molotov cocktails all around. She’s in there with Michelle, who she’s obviously had differences in the past [and] Tori, who she’s never gotten along with. Tony’s back — Michelle and Tony have obviously had some issues in the past just based Final Reckoning with her and Zach voting themselves in. There’s just so many different dynamics that are gonna have a carryover effect going. Devin and myself have had our differences in the past. So it’s gonna be interesting just to see how all these dynamics play out.”
Johnny, for his part, has been on more than 20 seasons of The Challenge and has seven wins under his belt. Still, that doesn’t mean he’s always right when it comes to the twists and turns production is going to throw the group’s way.
“It’s a constant cat and mouse game between us and production. It’s almost like a prison inmate and a prison guard relationship where we’re constantly sitting there trying to listen and put pieces together,” he said. “We’re constantly listening to try and get any little bit of information we can to try and figure out [what’s next]. If they say, ‘Wear compression shorts today, it’s like, ‘All right, we’re going in the water.’ Or they give us a strap to put our mics on, it’s like, ‘All right, we’re gonna be running.’ So there’s little things like that but I mean, they’ve gotten really good at keeping these secrets secret.”
For season 40, the stakes are higher than ever with a $1 million prize — but one thing remains the same: Johnny isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“The day that I know it’s time to hang it up [or] to walk away is when people either start feeling sympathy for me or start cheering me on,” he concluded. “If I ever do an elimination or a challenge and the cast is clapping and rooting for me, I know that I’m no longer a threat. And I know now that there’s no longer any fear there. When they start cheering for you, it’s like, ‘OK, it’s time.'”
The Challenge: Battle of the Eras airs on MTV Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
