The Greatest Male Players in Challenge History: #2- Johnny Bananas

9 min readFeb 8, 2019

25 Seasons: The Duel, Inferno III (Final), Gauntlet III, The Island (Win), The Ruins (Win), Cutthroat, Rivals (Win), Battle of the Exes (Win), Rivals II (2nd place), Free Agents (Win), Battle of the Exes II, Battle of the Bloodlines, Rivals III (Win), Invasion of the Champions, Champs vs. Pros, Dirty XXX, Champs vs. Stars (Win), Vendettas, Final Reckoning, War of the Worlds, War of the Worlds 2, Total Madness (Win), Ride or Dies (2nd place), World Championship, USA 2 (3rd place)

Final Efficiency: 12/25 (48%)

Win Efficiency: 8/25 (32%)

79 Mission Wins, 19–18 Elimination Record

Individual Missions: 8.25/33.25 (1 Quad) (24.8%)

Partner Missions: 18.33/80.33 (1 Tri) (22.8%)

Combined: 26.58/113.58 (1 Tri, 1 Quad) (23%)

Average Times Voted In Per Season: .83

Seasons Making Final Going Into Minimum Amount of Elims: 2

You could write an entire book on the career of Johnny Bananas. With 25 seasons under his belt the man has made himself synonymous with The Challenge.

With seven flagship championships (not to mention a win on Champs vs. Stars), it’s easy to call him the Tom Brady of The Challenge.

There’s more to talk about with Bananas’ career than anyone else, so instead of doing a season-by-season breakdown, I think it’s best to go over the pros and cons of his career. Let’s start with the bad, shall we?

Bananas has to be by far the luckiest person in Challenge history. It all starts with The Island, where he first became a star. Johnny behaved terribly that season, and was almost voted out over Abram, who was asking to be sent home.

Now, it has to be mentioned that Abe probably wouldn’t have put himself into the second face-off because he already had a key, but had Bananas been voted out (it was a 9–6 vote), there’s no way his career is the same.

He wouldn’t have been on the Champs team on The Ruins, which means he probably wouldn’t have gotten his first win until Rivals (if he was even deemed relevant enough to be on that season in the first place), so at a maximum he would have had five wins.

The next big thing is the departures of Kenny and Evan from the show. Johnny already had three wins when they left after Rivals, but at the time they were clearly bigger faces of the show than he was.

It’s impossible to say what would have happened if Kenny and Evan had remained on the show, and while he was always aligned with those guys and it might have made it even easier for him to make it to the end, they were also big competition. It’s also likely that Bananas wouldn’t have been cast as much with Kenny and Evan around, and he almost certainly wouldn’t be the face of the franchise that he is today.

The last major luck factor for Bananas is his partners. In his career, he has been paired with Tyler, Camila, Frank, Nany (twice), Vince, Sarah, Tony, Morgan and Justine. When you’ve literally never had a bad partner before in that many seasons, you have to consider yourself extremely lucky (or, more likely, favored by production).

Even the circumstances of him getting some of those partners are extremely lucky. He was originally supposed to be with Casey on Battle of the Exes, but she was replaced for Camila, who didn’t hook up with Bananas on screen. He was partnered with Frank over Twitter beef when they had never even met. Again, he was partnered with Nany without an on-screen hookup. And he was originally slated to be paired with Devin, but got Tony after Devin’s dad died.

Some of his wins are also extremely lucky.

He was carried to the end by Kenny on The Island.

On Rivals, he and Tyler won the final elimination because Adam messed up, and then they were behind 45 minutes to Kenny/Wes after the first day, but it was erased to a minute deficit on day two.

On Exes, Mark threw the final elimination because he felt Bananas/Camila would have a better shot in the final than he and Robin.

And on Rivals III he got partnered with the best girl in Sarah, although he was also the best guy on the season.

I’ll address another one of his perceived cons, which I don’t really view as that huge of a deal — his elimination record. He’s 19–18 in eliminations, holding the title of most elimination losses of all time.

That looks bad, and eliminations definitely aren’t his strong suit, but when you really break it down I don’t think any of his losses are embarrassing.

He lost to Tyler in I Can (arguably the dumbest elimination ever), Evan in a puzzle, Tyler (via CT), Leroy/Nia (where Bananas didn’t even get to compete because Nany got stuck), Leroy/Theresa in X-Battle, Cara/Jamie in a puzzle, Darrell, Wes in a blindfolded stickfighting elimination, Derrick, a redemption challenge against CT and Jordan, Devin in a memory elimination, Joss/Sylvia in a card stacking elimination, Paulie/Natalie in a contest to see who could hold their arms up the longest, Zach/Zahida in a climbing/geography elimination, Theo, Devin/Tori in the Ride or Dies final, and Jordan/Kaz in a puzzle.

I just don’t see a bad loss in there. Yeah, you would have liked to see him win some of those, especially later in his career, but there’s nothing in there that’s embarrassing (other than the CT backpack incident). And while this section is about his good luck, I’ll mention his bad luck of having to go into the final elimination six times, which usually means facing a good competitor at the end.

When you factor in his wins — defeating Dunbar, CT/Adam, Mark/Robin, Isaac, Jordan, CT, Dario/Nicole, the legend Riff Raff, Shane/Nelson, Wes, Paulie, plus his four wins to get back into the game on Exes II — I think Bananas is at least above average in eliminations.

Now that we’ve gone through all the flaws in his game, let’s move on to his strengths.

Johnny’s run from The Island to Rivals III is by far the most impressive stretch by anyone in Challenge history. Six wins, another final, with his worst finishes being the second-to-last man eliminated on Cutthroat and Bloodlines…it’s just an absurd stretch of 10 seasons.

Johnny is in the running for greatest in daily challenges ever. He and Tyler won three daily challenges in the stacked Rivals cast, he and Camila won three dailies on Exes, he won two individual/partner dailies on Free Agents, and he and Sarah won four dailies on Rivals III.

And when Bananas gets to finals, he usually wins, as he’s finished first in eight of the 12 finals he’s made it to.

Some might downplay Bananas’ competitive abilities, but I don’t think there’s much debate that he was the best male competitor on Exes, Free Agents, Bloodlines and Rivals III (I have him as the best on Total Madness and Champs vs. Stars as well).

One more thing about Johnny’s competitive abilities — he has to be considered one of the smartest, if not the smartest, competitors of all time. Things like seeing the markings in Giraffic Park on Inferno 3, coming up with the plan to put Wes at the bottom of the rope on The Ruins when he was trying to throw the first mission, talking his way into going a second time in the Roll With the Punches mission on Invasion, and solving the puzzle in Decontamination on Total Madness without going into the foam are underrated in his game.

But Bananas isn’t ranked this high just because of his competitive abilities, it’s also because of his politics.

From The Ruins to Rivals III, he was only sent in before the second-to-last elimination twice (Free Agents and Exes II). He was never sent in on Exes (only went in for getting last), Rivals II and Rivals III (only went in for drawing the black skull).

Johnny was obviously the third wheel to Kenny and Evan earlier in his career, but once they left he settled into being the clear best politician on the show, gaining loyal followers in people like Leroy, Camila and Nany, and working with basically every big name on the show in that era other than Wes.

Even on a season like Bloodlines, where most of Johnny’s allies were out of the game early and with a clear faction of young guys against him along with Abe and Cara, he was able to keep himself and his cousin out of elimination until the end.

I think Kenny and maybe Mark are better politically than Johnny, but I think there’s a valid argument that Bananas is the greatest politician of all time based on his longevity.

After Rivals III, Johnny had a six-season stretch of not making a final, but I think his demise from being a top player during that period was exaggerated. Losing to Darrell on Invasion and Derrick on Dirty XXX was nothing to be embarrassed about. He made the troika four times on Vendettas, and he was able to make it to the final elimination of Final Reckoning despite having almost the entire house against him.

He also had a pair of early exits on both War of the Worlds seasons, losing to Zach/Zahida and Theo.

But just when you thought his days of being able to make a final were finished, Bananas did the unthinkable and aligned with Wes on Total Madness, then took out his ginger nemesis in elimination en route to the final. There he was able to beat Rogan in elimination to stay in the final, and overtook Fessy near the end to pull off his seventh victory.

He returned on Ride or Dies and had another solid season, winning two missions, taking out Fessy/Moriah and Jordan/Aneesa in eliminations, and placing second overall. And then he made another final on USA 2, winning an indiviudal daily and beating Paulie in elimination along the way.

If this were a ranking of who was the best at their peak, Johnny probably doesn’t get placed this high. But his longevity of sustained excellence and only having a handful of dud seasons put him near the top for me.

To me it’s essentially a toss up between him and CT for the number one spot and it will probably be debated until the end of time.

It’s truly splitting hairs between CT and Bananas, but CT gets the edge to me because of his incredible consistency.

Comparing all their seasons, I have:

1 Bananas Free Agents

2 Bananas Exes

3 CT Rivals 2

4 Bananas Total Madness

5 CT Double Agents

6 Bananas Rivals 3

7 CT SLA

8 CT Invasion

9 Bananas Rivals

10 CT Champs vs. Stars 2

11 CT Dirty 30

12 CT The Duel

13 CT War of the Worlds 2

14 Bananas Ride or Die

15 CT Inferno 2

16 Bananas The Ruins

17 Bananas Rivals 2

18 CT Exes

19 CT Rivals

20 Bananas USA 2

21 CT Free Agents

22 CT The Inferno

23 CT Gauntlet 3

24 Bananas Vendettas

25 Bananas Final Reckoning

26 Bananas Inferno 3

27 Bananas Bloodlines

28 Bananas Exes 2

29 Bananas Champs vs. Stars

30 CT Champs vs. Stars

31 Bananas The Island

32 Bananas Dirty 30

33 Bananas Invasion

34 Bananas Cutthroat

35 Bananas War of the Worlds

36 CT Total Madness

37 CT Champs vs. Pros

38 Bananas Champs vs Pros

39 Bananas World Championship

40 Bananas War of the Worlds 2

41 Bananas Gauntlet 3

42 CT War of the Worlds

43 CT Final Reckoning

44 Bananas The Duel

Bananas 1+2+4+6+9+14+16+17+20+24+25+26+27+28+29+31+32+33+34+35+38+39+40+41+44=615/25=24.6

CT 3+5+7+8+10+11+12+13+15+18+19+21+22+23+30+36+37+42+43=375/19=19.74

Note that I don’t include Inferno 3, Duel II and Exes II for CT.

As you can see, CT has a comfortable lead in efficiency. CT has nine of the top 15 seasons between them, and Bananas has 15 of the bottom 21 seasons between them (in my opinion, of course).

Categorizing all their seasons, I have it as:

Johnny Great Seasons- 5 (Rivals, Exes, Free Agents, Rivals 3, Total Madness)

Johnny Good Seasons- 11 (Inferno 3, The Island, The Ruins, Rivals 2, Exes II, Bloodlines, Champs vs. Stars, Vendettas, Final Reckoning, Ride or Dies, USA 2)

Johnny Meh Seasons-3 (Cutthroat, Invasion, Dirty 30)

Johnny Dud Seasons- 6 (The Duel, Gauntlet 3, Champs vs. Pros, War of the Worlds, War of the Worlds 2, World Championships)

CT Great Seasons- 8 (Inferno II, Rivals II, Invasion, Dirty 30, War of the Worlds 2, Double Agents, Spies, Lies & Allies)

CT Good Seasons- 7 (The Inferno, Gauntlet 3, The Duel, Rivals, Exes, Free Agents, CvS)

CT Meh Sesaon- 1 (Champs vs. Pros)

CT Dud Seasons-3 (Final Reckoning, War of the Worlds, Total Madness)

While Bananas and CT are close in the same number of good/great seasons (16 to 15 in Johnny’s favor), I have CT with three more great seasons and Bananas with three more dud seasons.

It’s still a close call and he’s at worse 1A with CT in the GOAT discussion.

Bananas has had an incredible career and is truly one of the most legendary players in Challenge history.