The Top 10 Best and Worst MTV Challenge Season Titles Ever
The Challenge Season 39 premieres October 25th on MTV. With it comes its new title: Battle for a New Champion. It is a lousy mouthful of a title, and its existence is why I’ve still been calling it Season 39.
The title of this new season did get me thinking. I decided to take some time and figure out what are some of the best and worst season titles in Challenge history. Buckle in for a very subjective blog that I spent too much time on, only to likely be wrong about most of it.
It is important to note as well — we are only going to be breaking down the seasons based on what comes after the colon. For example, if we broke down The Challenge: Ride or Dies, we would only look at the Ride or Dies portion. We are doing this to even the playing field as The Real Worlds vs. Road Rules Challenge seasons are at a distinct disadvantage for being overly wordy.
5 Invasion of The Champions
You might be surprised to see Invasion on here as part of the Worst 5. I don’t think Invasion is a bad name at all — most people don’t, which is exactly why everyone refers to this season as Invasion. That’s not the official name of the season, though — the actual name is Invasion of The Champions.
While Invasion of The Champions properly explains the concept/format of the season, it is simply too many letters and syllables. We are talking four words, eight syllables, and twenty-two letters. Eight syllables is a real mouthful when mentioning a season name that should be quick. Think of all the two-syllable season names: Rivals, Cutthroat, The Ruins, Fresh Meat, etc., all quick and to the point. Plus, anyone who has ever had to manually type in the full name of a TV show with a remote control knows how much of a pain all those letters can be.
4 Vendettas
I understand MTV wanted to do a Rivals season while keeping it in an individual format. They had to come up with a new name, and Vendettas was decent. The problem is how people on the show began completely misusing the word left or right. Vendetta this, vendetta that.
The constant misuse was frustration, especially as it leaked into my life, where I began saying it and misusing it. That said, Vendettas is kind of a sick name on paper.
3 Battle of the Seasons
The Challenge has two seasons named Battle of the Seasons, and neither has a unique identifier. Again, everyone in The Challenge fandom makes a point to add “2012” when referring to this season, although that’s because fans care more than MTV did.
It stinks that you have to clarify what season you’re talking about every time, and then the fact we live in the age of the internet, these two seasons muddy up search results for one another. For a while, it looked like Battle of the Seasons (2012) would be the only semi-relevant one in The Challenge world, except with All Stars — now we have Challengers competing again from the original Battle of the Seasons!
2 Battle for a New Champion
Battle for a New Champion has all the same issues that Invasion of The Champions name has but doesn’t have a clear shortened version we can refer to it as like Invasion. It’s a mouthful of a name; we will need to say it all the time, and there isn’t a decent-looking initialized form for this season, either. You could refer to Total Madness or Double Agents as TM or DA — with Battle for a New Champion, BNC is the best we could possibly do, and those are ugly initials.
1 Spies, Lies & Allies
Spies, Lies & Allies is a corny ass name. I say this as someone who podcast recapped the entire season; I cringed inside every time I had to repeat “Spies, Lies & Allies” aloud at the beginning of each episode.
Now, SLA is only five syllables, which is more tolerable than Invasion of The Champions and Battle for a New Champion. Still, all the little formatting details of writing out the full name is bogus. First, you must remember to include a comma after Spies, and then remember not to have one after Lies. Whenever punctuation or grammar becomes involved in a title, it becomes a worse title, especially in the modern age when people are tweeting/searching for the show online.
5 The Gauntlet
The Gauntlet sounds intense. In theory, running a Gauntlet is something that requires a high level of difficulty, and the intensity excites you about the competition you are about to watch.
Thanos didn’t wear an Infinity Glove to wipe half the universe — he wore a fucking Infinity Gauntlet.
Personally, I’m also a fan when the season name is the same as the elimination arena. Watching Derrick and Sarah Greyson repeatedly fight for their lives in The Gauntlet was very cool.
4 Battle of the Exes
When the words “Battle of the” are added to a season title, it immediately teeters on the verge of being unnecessarily wordy. Similar to Invasion, everyone refers to the Battle of the Exes seasons as both Exes 1 and Exes 2. However, I think the full name of Battle of the Exes is fantastic in grabbing a random viewer’s attention.
Back in the era when people would scroll through channels looking for something to watch, the title of a show was crucial to getting someone to click and continue watching. For those who love messy drama, a title like Battle of the Exes sells itself. As much as people like dating shows — they relate far more to seeing dysfunction and especially enjoy watching the demise of people who aren’t themselves. Jerry Springer and Steve Wilkos built their shows for decades upon the backs of messy relationships.
A curious viewer might click on the show thinking they’re about to see a couple fight, only to be surprised they’re actually partners, which is even more chaotic. Battle of the Exes is a mouthful but a great title if you love the drama aspects of this show.
Sidenote: Rivals has a similar vibe, except the mess of Exes appeals to a broader audience, in my opinion.
3 Free Agents
If you prefer to think of The Challenge as a sport, no season title is better than Free Agents. When people think of the term Free Agents, it reminds them of athletes going out on the open market searching for something, some trying to make a name for themselves while others trying to get what they deserve. The term Free Agent represents a level of general independence. Typically, on a Challenge season, you have to hear players repeat the season’s name multiple times.
As mentioned earlier, the repeated use of the word Vendetta on Vendettas was annoying, as was the constant echoing of “Dirty” on Dirty 30. Of all those, Free Agents was easily the most tolerable, mainly because the term itself got used in the context of people attempting to play a solo game. Someone playing as a Free Agent style game was a cool concept.
There’s something so straightforward about the Free Agents name that makes it work: two words, three syllables, and ten letters.
2 The Inferno
What does Inferno mean? No one knows what it means, but it’s provocative; it gets the people going.
Okay, in reality, an Inferno is an intense fire or a place/state meant to represent Hell. Look, I’m not here to preach any Jesus beliefs to you. I genuinely have no clue if Jesus exists. I am confident there is a Satan because he’s been having fun torturing Jets fans my entire life.
Like The Gauntlet, The Inferno is a badass name that notches up the heat. The Inferno name has a vagueness to where the format can be anything, yet, with the name, you know whatever you’re watching will be intense and high-stakes.
1 The Duel
The Duel has the cool name aspects of The Inferno & Gauntlet while maintaining subtlety. Just the general concept of a Duel and calling someone out to Duel is truly epic.
On The Simpsons, there was an episode where Homer became addicted to slapping people in the face and calling them out for Duels, only for it to backfire on him eventually. Still, I get it; calling someone out for a Duel is such a badass concept.
In Sports, when two teams go against each other, and the match gets referred to as a Duel, you know that means it was a good battle. The term Duel carries a grand sense of bravado while maintaining an old-school elegance. On The Challenge, The Duel represented the elimination arena, a threat to use against other players, and for some, their biggest failures and triumphs.
This blog was a long-winded and convoluted way to say MTV needs to give us The Duel 3.
