One of the notable aspects of The Challenge: USA spinoff is that it only features one familiar face from MTV’s main show, and that’s the host, TJ Lavin.
However, none of the popular competitors from MTV’s show are part of CBS’ spinoff. Instead, the cast members are from Amazing Race, Big Brother, Love Island, and Survivor.
Big Brother brought multiple competitors from Season 23 of their show to The Challenge: the USA. That includes Kyland Young, who became part of a “three-headed monster” that others were looking to oust from the CBS spinoff show.
In interviews ahead of the premiere episode, he’d mentioned that he studied up on his Challenge history, watching previous seasons of MTV’s show in preparation for the spinoff.
With that in mind, he was asked during a recent interview which one of several MTV Challenge legends he’d choose to face in an unknown elimination event.
The Big Brother 23 star gave a surprising answer but one that makes good sense from a statistical and strategic standpoint.
Keep in mind that this report will contain spoilers through CBS’ The Challenge: USA, Episode 7.
Kyland part of The Challenge: USA’s power players
Early on during The Challenge: USA, it became apparent that several competitors stood out as potential favorites to win it all. Among them were Survivor’s Tyson Apostol along with Big Brother stars Angela Rummans and Kyland Young.
Each of them won early daily challenges and won multiple times. That qualified them to run in TJ Lavin’s final since they earned enough money in their personal bank accounts with the wins.
It also gave them a reason to form an alliance to keep one another safe as part of a winners’ club. That became known by other cast members as a “three-headed monster,” which daily challenge winners Domenick Abbate and Cayla Platt went after in Episode 7.
Their big move succeeded as they sent Kyland into The Arena elimination with his teammate, Love Island’s Kyra Green. While the event involved several physical aspects, the trivia part was what tripped Kyland and Kyra up, and a question about Madonna’s marriages got them.
Ultimately, their opponents, Leo Temory and Alyssa Lopez won the event, getting all the answers to their trivia questions correct by placing medicine balls with corresponding numbers on them on the top of a wall.
That sent Kyland and Kyra home, chopping one head off the three-headed monster from the game’s top alliance.
Kyland reveals MTV opponent choice for a Challenge elimination
After Kyland and Kyra’s exit in Episode 7 aired, the eliminated competitors appeared in exit interviews for various media outlets, podcasts, and YouTube channels.
During a chat on YouTube with Survivor star Wendell Holland and his co-host Bryce Izyah, they brought up Kyland being a student of The Challenge. Wendell asked him to choose who he’d want to face in elimination if his options were MTV Challenge legends CT Tamburello, Wes Bergmann, or Johnny Bananas.
“I mean honestly, to win, Bananas. He obviously has an amazing record in the game as a whole, but not in eliminations, so I feel like that would be the best chances of coming out. And you still get to beat a legend, so you get both,” Kyland replied.
“And I like Bananas. He’s the only one of those three I met. I like him a lot, but you know I’d also want to win, and his record’s not super great in eliminations specifically,” he added.
As of this report, Johnny Bananas has participated in a whopping 20 seasons of MTV’s The Challenge. As diehard fans know, he’s the all-time great in terms of Challenge championships, winning in seven seasons. That’s two more than CT Tamburello.
However, Bananas’ elimination record sits at 11 wins and 14 losses. With that in mind, Kyland seems to have the right idea, although Wes Bergmann tried to oust Bananas from the game in Total Madness. Viewers saw how that decision to go into elimination turned out for Wes, with Bananas remaining in the game and winning the season.
The Challenge: USA airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on CBS. The Challenge Season 38 is TBA for MTV.
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