The Greatest Female Players in Challenge History: #29- Theresa Jones
7 Seasons: Fresh Meat II, Cutthroat, Rivals, Rivals II, Free Agents, Battle of the Exes II (2nd place), Double Agents
Final Efficiency: 1/7 (14.3%)
Win Efficiency: 0/7 (0%)
10 Mission Wins, 2–7 Elimination Record
Individual Missions: 0/3 (0%)
Partner Missions: 6/33 (18.2%)
Combined: 6/36 (16.7%)
Average Times Voted In Per Season: 1
Seasons Making Final Going Into Minimum Amount of Elims: 0
Theresa is one of the hardest players ever to analyze.
She went her first four seasons without making a final, racking up a putrid 0–4 elimination record. She had just one daily challenge win in the first three partner seasons she competed on, and the win was handed to her and Jasmine in the Frog Smash mission on Rivals II when nobody tried to knock them off the platform.
But Theresa had some bad luck early in her career. She got weak partners like Ryan on Fresh Meat II (where she was the fourth female drafted after Cara, Laurel and Mandi) and Jasmine on Rivals II. She had Tina throw her elimination to Tori on Cutthroat, and had to face Laurel/Cara in the second female jungle with Camila on Rivals.
Theresa finally came into her own on Free Agents, shocking many when she defeated Camila in the Looper elimination. But Free Agents also exposed Theresa’s biggest flaw — her bad political game. She rallied the house to get Laurel thrown into the fifth elimination, but chickened out and burned her vote on Jasmine, causing mistrust in her own alliance. It came back to bite her the very next episode, when she was voted in by one of her biggest allies Devyn.
Theresa managed to stay out of elimination until the end, winning three daily challenges throughout the season, including the Dug Out mission with Nany. But she fell short of making the finals, losing to her chief rival Laurel in Puzzle Pyramid.
After a strong Free Agents season, Theresa had undoubtedly her best season on Exes II. Being partnered with Wes took the responsibility of playing the political game out of her hands, although she did make the best political move of her career in the first episode of the season, convincing Wes to throw in Dustin/Jessica instead of Bananas/Nany, delaying the inevitable war between Johnny and Wes.
Competitively, Theresa and Wes were one of the best two teams throughout the season, earning the Power Couple three times, but their game was undone by Bananas/Nany coming back into the game.
After they lost their elimination to Leroy/Nia, Theresa got one of the luckiest breaks in Challenge history, getting to replace Nia for the final elimination, where she took out her rival Nany and advanced to her first final. But she and Leroy fell short in the final to Sarah and Jordan.
After a long layoff, Theresa returned on Double Agents. It was a season that couldn’t be more representative of her as a player.
While she was strong physically — winning the mini-final with Jay and coming close to winning the Aerial Takedown mission — she had one of the worst executed political moves in Challenge history.
When she and Jay were the Double Agents, they orchestrated Kam and Ashley going against each other in elimination. In theory the move made sense to get out one of the best female competitors, but it ended up pissing off half the house and turning Theresa into “Toxic T”. She was thrown into the next girls elimination and lost to Kaycee in Snapping Point.
While Theresa was a great competitor, she had one of the worst political games in Challenge history. She didn’t come away from the show with many tight friends, and the few that she did make while she was on the show (like Devyn and Nany) she ended up burning.
She had what it took to win a final, but she was only able to get to the end once, and even that was lucky because she came in as a replacement for Nia.
When it came to competition, Theresa was one of the best girls in the history of the show.
But there’s much more to The Challenge than the physical side, and that’s where Theresa consistently came up short.
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