Top 10 Most Dangerous Daily Challenges in MTV Challenge History

This week’s daily challenge was scary as a trio of players had to be put in hypothermia blankets, and Nelson was sent off in ambulance. As cool as some challenges can be, they can become dangerous very quickly. I figured it was a perfect time to look at 10 of the Most Dangerous daily challenges. These are challenges where players got hurt, infected, or had the potential to get even more hurt. I avoided eliminations because at the end of the day, that’s a lot of challenges/eliminations I have to go through in order to create a list of 10. I created this list knowing there’s 5–25 other challenges that I might be missing, or I might be forgetting how dangerous they were.

What I will note in this article is that scary vs dangerous are two different things. Many of the challenges that are supposed to derive fear out of the competitors are often actually very safe because production puts a considerable amount of thought into them. It’s the challenges that are sometimes too simplified, that they won’t know is/are dangerous until things go wrong.

10 Oil Change — Battle of the Seasons

If you don’t remember, this was the second daily challenge of Battle of the Seasons. Players wrestle in an oil pit for up to 10 minutes, with the goal being to knock your opponent outside. The problem with this challenge is the fact that players were starting to get hurt/bleed, which led to blood mixing with the oil, and the fact the pit never got sanitized after they began (meaning, add in Challenger sweat too). Infections and rashes aren’t what people think of when it comes to dangerous, but an infection can take someone out much faster than a broken finger.

It is a weird pick for #10 since the daily challenge itself became one big alliance tagging themselves in and out to assure safety mutually, but it’s not always about what happened; it’s about how it could have gone much worse.

9 Roller Derby — The Duel 1

Imagine if you were like not that great of a roller skater or even didn’t know how (I don’t), and then CT and Evan and Big Easy are coming down the pike at you. I’m seriously shocked that there were no significant injuries from the Roller Derby challenge, considering how vicious the men get sometimes. If you watch the rest of the Duel, Brad’s jersey gets so torn up in this challenge that he wears a different shirt for the rest of the game.

Brad overcoming the odds to beat CT and other men was fun to watch, it’s just this one could have easily resulted in some gnarly injuries.

8 Dug Out/Rampage — Rivals 2 and Free Agents

I think this one is a bit self-explanatory. Any time you mix Hall Brawl with Balls In and add an endurance element, the game is going to get a bit weird and dangerous. The fact players can get blindsided from 4 different angles or just run straight into someone is a bit terrifying. When the females went first on Free Agents, Cara drove herself into Nany, and it created a pile-up, and almost made the players realize “oh damn, getting hit hurts.” Ironically, we see less contact in the male round, and that’s because Zach and CT are on the same team, and all the other guys don’t want to get murdered by the two biggest and fastest guys. However, in a world where Zach, Leroy, and CT were all on different teams, we probably would have seen a lot more contact.

These players understood that it was more important to play this daily challenge with elimination still in the balance, and the final nearing. Things could have gone badly, rapidly. Yet, I enjoy this challenge from a viewing perspective. It’s easily one of my favorite challenges ever as a person that is not trying to hyper-evaluate everything.

7 Cold War — Total Madness

This past week’s daily challenge was dangerous at first because you can tell that even though they kept flashing graphics on the screen that the water was colder, it was not, and they did it to make it seem more extreme. In those opening rounds, the pool was getting colder from the ice, Dee, Nelson, and Kailah were having legitimate trouble (on top of being in the water for too long). The fact this challenge forced two players into wearing Hypothermic blankets and then sent Nelson to the Hospital shows they didn’t think this one all the way through.

Cory made a brilliant move by opting out because he saw what happened to Nelson and understood his team’s time wasn’t going to win. Yet, TJ pushes this rhetoric of no quitting and might have sent them to the hospital. Apparently, Nelson’s team got asked less sympathetically if they were quitting than the edit displayed (which makes sense when you consider he was upset at Cory).

6 Stratos-Fear — Challenge 2000

I wanted to include a throwback daily challenge on here because I don’t give enough to the older seasons (partially because they’re not as readily available, and it was a different show pre-eliminations). Stratos-Fear is famous because Kat Ogden from Real World London broke a Guinness World Record by bungee jumping 700 feet off the Stratosphere Tower in Vegas.

Why is this on the list if Bungee Jump is safe considering the harness? Well, they had to cancel production on this challenge mid-way through due to massive winds, which only happens at a daily challenge of that height. I don’t blame production on this one because it is an all-time cool daily challenge, but I do blame God for creating wind.

I also want to give an honorable mention to the “Human Catapult Challenge” that never happened on the Extreme Challenge. MTV wanted a human to get catapulted into a huge net. When they tried it out before the show got filmed, the tester broke his leg. I’m glad to know that before Sue Sylvester became the Coach of the Cheerios, she was producing the daily challenges for MTV.

5 Dirty Laundry — Rivals 3

I remember watching this Challenge, thinking it was hilarious and highly entertaining. Also, not going to lie, some people looked pretty good. Then I found out a decent amount of the female competitors got yeast infections from the Challenge, and it became infinity less rad.

Again, swimming in water that has nurse sharks hundreds of feet aways and heights challenges with harnesses are scary; but they aren’t anywhere as dangerous as stuff that can create infections. It sucks because these are the throwback challenges that I like in theory/are fun to watch.

4 Meet Me Halfway — Battle of the Bloodlines

The third daily of Battle of the Bloodlines was a challenge where players had to jump from a big ledge to a small platform to a big ledge as a team, one at a time while carrying individual flags. The goal is to get all 30 flags switched onto whatever side, and in all honesty, this would look like a tame daily challenge most seasons. I don’t know what MTV was thinking with this daily challenge.

Part of me thinks they expected nobody to fall because the jumps aren’t more than a few feet. Yet, if they don’t expect anyone to fall, why would this even be a challenge? Likewise, they’re also 30 feet over, so if someone does fall, it’s awful because they’re not in control of their falls either. It’s not like someone jumping off a cliff feet-first. They get recoiled off a surface and are not in control of their body as they fall into the water.

Considering one player broke their toe in this challenge, and another ruptured their spleen, this takes the 4th spot. This one is baffling because, again, it’s not something you expect to be dangerous. It reminds of a line from the TV show Succession. The wife and daughter of the company founder asks her husband (also in the company), who was getting questioned because the company was under a federal indictment if the questions were all softballs. To which he replied, “You ever been hit in the face with a softball?”

This daily challenge is the equivalent of getting hit in the face with a softball. It might give you a concussion or a broken nose out of nowhere! In Tony’s case, a ruptured spleen! Then again, Tony is like 6'2–6'3, did he even need to jump that much?

3 Surf’s Up — Cutthroat

This one is similar reasoning as the previous listing, except exponentially more dangerous. Since it’s two players jumping synchronized onto a small moving platform, it is a lot easier, and a lot more dangerous because you bump heads, bones, etc., while falling together.

Chet walked away from this challenge with a giant concussion that forced him out of the game. Players became terrified as this challenge went on. It’s a decent concept that they somewhat perfected on Battle of the Exes 2. They put male players on a moving surfboard where they’d have the option to risk it all and jump after a giant bag that their females were clinging to in hopes of having a short overall swim. Wes and many others were quick to realize; it’s better off to have body control when you’re going into the water.

2 Riot Act — Cutthroat

When I think of Riot Shields, I think Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. In the story mode, there is a portion where players use riot shields to protect themselves and murder terrorists by bludgeoning them. Now, I understand that’s a video game and this real-life, and they aren’t going to murder each other. Then again, we saw it play it out on the Challenge, and after the game, Derrick’s face looks like it got mauled by a raccoon, Dunbar is busted open, and Tori’s got a nose-bleed. Had they played this game 2–2–2, I wonder how wild it would have gotten overall.

I’m hoping this is one of the challenges where the were unsaid rules in place because if not, you consider someone getting hit in the back of the head, or blindsided by the side. We see in the video, Derrick blocks one or two hits, but then he might have an exposed blindspot, allowing someone to clock him clean (accidentally or advertently). If the shields themselves chip, even if it’s plastic, that can still cut/create some damage. The visuals of this challenge are great, but if you want to keep your cast safe, it’s not the perfect challenge.

1 Car Crash — Vendettas

The timeless theme of falling without body control returns. It is like the Bloodlines, problem, except a thousand times worse, because players are falling fast with much recoil from hitting these metal cars. Nelson and Zach were famously the two people to finish this challenge because they competed when the vehicles did not get lubed up prior. However, the windshields of the cars get shattered when they performed the challenge, requiring the two of them to get stitches and for the challenge to delay filming until the next day.

The next day the cars got lubed up correctly. Once lubed, players couldn’t make it across (no shattered glass cutting people up, though). Leroy famously wiped out in this daily challenge and was sent to the hospital. Not to mention, multiple players hit the water hard in this one (Jemmye, Kayleigh opted out of attempting). The cars look close, but you can’t jump from the bottom of the hood because you won’t have enough traction and will slip. Thus, you have to make a big leap from where the bottom of the windshield is.

This daily challenge is also impossible for the female competitors unless 19-year-old Candice Parker was going to be on the Challenge. Natalie gets one of the best jumps I’ve ever seen by a female competitor on this show as she gets reasonable distance and hang-time, but still can’t make the jump from car 2 to car 3. I don’t think Laurel could jump as well as Natalie because Natalie was a gymnast. Yet, someone Natalie’s size doesn’t have the length to do it either. So again, it’s a question as to: “WHO THE HELL WAS THIS MADE FOR?”

These challenges are visually epic, but if they can potentially end someone’s entire game in one snap, then they should look for alternatives.