‘The Challenge’: Wes Bergmann Said Johnny ‘Bananas’ Devenanzio’s ‘Total Madness’ Strategy Proves He’s an Awful Player
The Challenge: Total Madness is already enthralling viewers, as we’re getting to see the rookie players attempt to stand their ground against the vets. And Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio and Wes Bergmann are teaming up for the first time in the show’s history.
Devenanzio and Bergmann are known heavy-hitters when it comes to the show. They’ve both won their fair share of Challenge seasons in the past — and they typically go head to head against each other when they’re competing on the same season.
While they may be working together for Total Madness, Bergmann still doesn’t respect Devenanzio’s gameplay, though. Here’s what he said on the Bachelor Party podcast.
Wes Bergmann and Johnny ‘Bananas’ Devenanzio hated each other for years
Bergmann and Devenanzio have been feuding for so long that many fans most likely don’t even know how it began. But it all started over a decade ago with The Ruins. MTV explained Bergmann and Devenanzio started the 2009 season on the same side, but Devenanzio’s loyalties to Kenny Santucci and Evan Starkman got in the way. When Santucci and Starkman started targeting Bergmann, it ruined Devenanzio and Bergmann’s working relationship.
Bergmann and Devenanzio attempted to settle their feud a few years later — but all was not forgotten from the past. Back in 2014 with Battle of the Exes 2, the duo made it known they’d always be on opposing sides. And while they may be working together on Total Madness, they’re still making jabs at each other to the cameras whenever possible.
“I look to my side and it just happens to be one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen and that is Wes Bergmann,” Devenanzio said in the first episode of Total Madness. “Even though Wes and I have done multiple seasons together we’ve always been at each other’s throats and we’ve never worked together. Everybody just knows if Wes and I are on the same season, it’s gonna be a battle royale from day one.”
They vowed to work together on ‘Total Madness’
Devenanzio hasn’t made it to a Challenge final in quite some time. And since he and Bergmann are aging, they both know it’d be easier than ever for the younger rookies to take them out. So, for Season 35, they’re trying a strategy they’ve never tried before — and that’s working together.
“I think Wes and I both knew that us putting our beef aside and working together was probably the smartest thing for our games,” Devenanzio told People. “However, we both have been, I think, burdened with unusually large egos. And putting our egos aside and trusting the other one was very difficult. On The Challenge, trust is d*mn near impossible.”
Devenanzio continued on by saying the well-known rivalry was benefitting “everyone” except him and Bergmann, so teaming up was the only avenue left to try. “Why are we going to continue to make the lives easier, season after season, of all the other cast members, all these rookies, all these people who don’t know how and don’t have the ability to play the game as well as us?” he added.
Bergmann thinks Devenanzio needs to update his strategy
Bergmann and Devenanzio may be working together, but Bergmann still thinks Devenanzio has a lot of improvements to make.
“He does a very bad job of actually playing the game with everyone in the house,” Bergmann said on the Bachelor Party podcast. “What he wants to do is sit around with three people, basically, like, maybe even less, and he doesn’t want to make new partnerships, he doesn’t want anything to be formal, he wants everything to be very ambiguous. And he’ll joke around with you and he’ll make you think he’s your friend, but as soon as you want to talk game, he will find a way out of that conversation because he doesn’t want to formally partner with anyone.”
Bergmann says this is nothing like his strategy. He likes to work with 75% of the house and make small deals throughout the season that he can deliver on.
So, why are they in an alliance? “We’re both really desperate for friends,” Bergmann said. We’ll have to wait and see how it all pans out on Total Madness!
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