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Every Winner of The Challenge, Ranked

Michael Alvey
20 min readFeb 29, 2024

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Battle For a New Champion featured a cast of unproven challengers, making fans question just how legitimate of a champion the winner really is.

There’s a lot of factors that go into how good a winner was — how did they do in the missions, how many eliminations did they win, how strong was the competition, how hard was the final, etc.

Every win should be judged differently. While I do lump people who won together in team seasons at times in these rankings, in most cases I judge their performances individually.

I’m judging wins from every incarnation of The Challenge based on how impressive the winner’s entire season was, not just how they did in the final.

DOESN’T COUNT

Cynthia, Eric N, Jon, Rachel C and Sean (Road Rules: All Stars)

This isn’t a win. Who did they beat in the final? Nobody. There wasn’t even a final. This is a Road Rules season, not a Challenge season. Please stop pretending like it’s one, Maria Menounos.

PROBABLY SHOULDN’T COUNT

166. Rachel (Battle of the Eras)

Rachel achieved more in her “winning” season than others, but her getting a “win” for her performance in the final — where she got last for the women at one checkpoint, third at four checkpoints, second at one and first at one — is the biggest injustice in Challenge history.

165–160. Anne, Kalle, Kefla, Mark, Noah and Roni (Real World vs. Road Rules)

A six-episode season with no eliminations that had a final of pulling money out of a chamber.

159–154. Dan S, Yes, Los, Veronica, Holly S and Piggy (Challenge 2000)

An 11-episode season with no eliminations with a much more exciting final of solo diving.

153–148. Dan R, Jamie M, Julie, Kameelah, Rebecca and Syrus (Extreme Challenge)

A step up in competition and the first legitimate team final, but still a season with no eliminations.

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