KTT Episode 3: Ranking MTV's The Challenge

As a huge fan of The Challenge, I wanted to rank every single season, this will include spinoffs such as All Stars, Spring Break Challenge and Champs Vs. So that is 41 mainline seasons (Yes, I will be ranking Vets vs New Threats, but it will only be based on the episodes released thus far), 5 All Star seasons and 3 Champs vs seasons along with Spring Break Challenge, 50 seasons total. Not gonna do USA tho bc I haven't rewatched USA 1 in a long time and I'd be just guessing atp. F tier: 50th place: Road Rules All Stars - I found this season dull boring and drab, it's so long and just drags on and on for ages. 49th place: Spies, Lies and Allies - It's better than the first season, but honestly the main pro I give to older seasons is that they are short, Spies, Lies and Allies is so long, it takes forever for anything to happen, the cast is garbage aside from a few people, notably Amanda, it's bad. 48th place: Real World vs Road Rules - Another boring season of the first 5. It's just boring. 47th place: Extreme Challenge - Another boring season but better than Seasons 1 and 2 and SLA. 46th place: The Challenge 2000 - It nearly beat the next season on the list, but I found the cast of the next season far more interesting. 45th place: Battle of the Sexes - It was mediocre, the women were fun, but the men were all mostly boring. 44th place: Battle of the Sexes 2 - I also found this season boring but it has a really notable cast with a lot of big names. 43rd place: Spring Break Challenge - A short, fun enough little spinoff that doesn't overstay it's welcome, but I do blame it for bringing Camilla onto the show. 42nd place: Champs vs Pros - The Pros were mostly boring and aside from a few notable moments, it's a dull season. 41st place: Double Agents - Slightly better than SLA as a newer season, it has its moments, notably Killa Kam, but it's just boring. 40th place: Ride or Dies - Starts off strong with particularly Turbo carrying the hell out of the early episodes, but then it's just dull, same people, same targets, boring ass boot order and they stall it FOR SO LONG, just over and over the same thing of one partner goes, but the other is still in so we have to wait forever for their other partner to go home, like it's bloated, but at least has a couple good episodes to start. D tier: 39th place: XXX: Dirty 30 - It has a lot going for it, but I found the bad parts of the season really hard to sit through and the cast was notably more unlikeable than usual with Camila in particular doubling down on being an awful person. 38th place: Battle of the Seasons 2005 - The best of the non elimination game formats, it's alright but nothing too amazing. 37th place: Champs vs Stars 1 - It was fine, it has a couple notable moments but a pretty dull season, especially compared to the sequel to it. 36th place: All Stars 3 - Every time I rewatch this season, I like it less. I love Wes and Jonna and MJ is pretty good, I liked seeing Nehemiah again, it could have been great but it was a very dull season for the most part. 35th place: The Island - Could have been great but like Dirty 30, the toxicity kills it, but unlike Dirty 30, a lot of the likeable people do end up defeating the horribly unlikeable people and make it far into the game, plus Evelyn and KellyAnne's wins are like, in my top 5 favorite moments across all of The Challenge. 34th: Battle of the Eras - A lot of the people I was excited for left early, the final was exciting but overall I hated the star point thingy that basically handed Rachel the win, I felt bad for Michelle, I didn't like the format very much and having so many elims at once could have been exciting if it wasn't for the more interesting cast members all going out there. 33rd: Battle For A New Champion - A lot of good drama, but overall I found the cast bland and the season to be a steamroll with most of the standouts just being Horacio, Nurys, Kyland, Big T, Melissa, Jay, Berna and Michelle and even then I'd say most of them are just high C-Low B tier characters on this season in the grand scheme of the show. C tier: 32nd: Battle of the Bloodlines - A couple notable moments, I think the rookies are strong but most don't return, it was a good season. 31st: The Ruins - Just outside of the top 30 is the Ruins, I really want to rank this higher but the toxicity and steamrolling by the unlikeable majority makes it drop this low, even if there's so many good elims, so many good rivalries, fantastic episodes in general and a really fantastic set of fights, it has so much toxicity that it just gets hard to watch, especially surrounding Tonya. 30th: The Inferno 3 - It's just an alright middle of the road season of the show. 29th: All Stars 1 - It's alright, but lacks a lot that the other 3 All Stars seasons have. 28th: Battle of the Exes - A lot of toxicity but also some fantastic moments, I liked all of the pairs, especially the ones that left towards the middle of the season, a lot of fun drama, interesting elims, etc. Good season. 27th: The Gauntlet - It's fine but it's also only good because of like 2 characters: Katie and Sarah. 26th: The Inferno - Carried by Veronica, but a fine enough older season. B tier: 25th: The Gauntlet 2 - A lot of great storylines, some really underrated characters like Montana, Beth is fantastic and has imo her best run on the show, Derrick is great, it's a great cast but the final sucks and the team captains' format is not good. 24th: Total Madness - Good but not fantastic, has a lot of great elims, great cast, still some good drama, if they didn't edit out Dee, it'd probably be top 15. 23rd: Rivals 3 - Underrated by a lot of the community, it has a lot of problems but for what it does well, it's a top tier season. 22nd: Invasion of the Champions - Bad format but a good season overall. 21st: All Stars 4 - I hate the stars, I don't like Laurel's win from a game standpoint, but it's okay. 20th: All Stars 2 - The 2nd best of the All Stars seasons barely makes it's way into the top 20, it's good but nothing incredibly memorable. 19th: Vendettas - Does a lot right, but I also think it's a little too long of a season, 18th: Final Reckoning - Terrible format but some amazing TV moments throughout. 17th: The Duel 2 - A consistently good season of the show with no real slow point, but it's also just good throughout, never being great. 16th: Battle of the Seasons 2012 - I love the rookies, seeing the vets go in again and again was interesting, strong cast, great final. 15th: Champs vs Stars 2 - The best spinoff season outside of All Stars 5, I adore this season, it's got a fascinating split dynamic, a ton of strong gameplay and some great notable moments like Jozea sucking at swimming. 14th: Season 41: Vets and New Threats - So far it ranks here, it could go up depending on if it ends strongly, but it'll all depend on the ending for me, great showing for a new season though. A Tier: 13th: All Stars 5 - It starts off really slow, but then massively gets better by the time of episode 5 and stays one of the strongest newer seasons for the entire rest of it's run. 12th: The Gauntlet 3 - I find it fascinating as a season and basically just a better version of The Ruins. 11th: The Inferno 2 - A classic iconic season of the show, but not quite top 10 to me. 10th: Fresh Meat - A ton of iconic storylines, a strong cast and a decent boot order keeps it in the top 10 for me. 9th: The Duel - I find it great but not quite top 8 great, it's good and has iconic moments, but also has some racism, some really weird biases against people on the cast, and also has an iconic moment nobody talks about of Nehemiah beating Kenny, the only person in challenge history to ever do so. 8th: War of the Worlds - Fantastic until it swaps to a solo format. 7th: Cutthroat - In my opinion the most consistent run of the show ever, it's all great episodes with all killer no filler, but it's also a season that never gets a fantastic episode like the 6 above it. 6th: Fresh Meat 2 - Nearly top 5, I wanted to put it top 5 badly but the 5 above it are so good. The cast is fantastic, but a lot of the rookies never come back and most of the early boots are unnotable. S Tier: 5th: Rivals 2 - A fantastic season of Reality Television, but a lot of the cast, especially the early boots are just not too notable. 4th: War of the Worlds 2 - Still a lot of unnotable early boots, but it's a season with fantastic politics, a great sense of drama throughout, fantastic fights, top tier characters and a downfall so good it should be written about for the main villains. 3rd: Battle of the Exes 2 - Another fantastic season, the only thing I don't like is that Wes who dominated the season is basically the only person of the near finalists to only get 1 chance, Leroy had 2 chances, Theresa had 2 chances, Bananas and Nany had 2 chances, Jay and Jenna got dragged and Sarah and Jordan are really the only ones that earned it so their run is well earned. 2nd: Rivals - The most consistent season of the show even if the early boots are unnotable still. 1st: Free Agents - Every cast member is notable, everyone gets smth to do, the cast is interesting and plays in an interesting way, a lot of dumb moves that make for fantastic TV are done here, it's amazing. And that's it, thanks for reading this overly long practically an essay rendition of my thoughts on The Challenge seasons, comment if you want me to go more in depth on a specific season, but for now, these are my rankings.