According to The Challenge’s Ryan Kehoe, production forced him to follow a specific rule in Season 40’s opening daily challenge that one of his castmates didn’t have to follow.
The first event of MTV’s Battle of the Eras season featured all 40 cast members attempting to build puzzles resembling the number 40 and then retrieve 10 light sticks from the water.
To get those light sticks, they had to grab a round boat, paddle out to obtain their specific colored lights, and bring them back to shore.
Viewers saw Laurel Stucky and Cara Maria Sorbello from the Era 2 team complete the event ahead of all cast members.
Johnny Bananas, Rachel Robinson, CT Tamburello, Cory Wharton, and Michele Fitzgerald were among the others who excelled in the event.
However, multiple cast members struggled, including Nurys Mateo, Leroy Garrett, Katie Cooley, Ryan, and Devin Walker.
Season 40 daily challenge held to weed out ‘weak links’
From the start of Season 40, host TJ Lavin revealed the Era Invitational, a daily challenge and elimination event to weed out each team’s weakest links. Eight eliminations would occur, with one man and one woman from each team ousted from the game.
Each team’s worst-performing man and woman in the daily challenge would automatically go to the elimination event. The man and woman who finished first from the team would get to choose their opponents from their team.
A clip that The Challenge shared on Instagram showed the tense opening challenge, which featured some players struggling to paddle or navigate their boats in the water at night.
In particular, Era 3’s Devin mentioned that his boat was leaking. It eventually got to the point where he couldn’t use his boat, and he opted to swim instead.
“Devin as a competitor, he’s always gonna fight to the end,” his Era 3 teammate Tori Deal said in a confessional interview.
Footage showed Devin emerging on shore from the water, carrying his light sticks. He was coughing heavily from being in the water but outperformed his teammate, Leroy Garrett. Due to that, Devin wouldn’t automatically go into elimination.
Ryan calls out Season 40 castmate for getting ‘a pass’
While Devin’s effort seemed impressive in the episode, his castmate Ryan indicated it may have been against the rules. A fan shared Ryan’s Instagram Story video clip in which the Fresh Meat star claims production made him return to shore to grab a new boat to use rather than letting him swim.
“So when my boat capsized, I was told by the rule people from the sidelines, ‘You have to go back and get another boat,'” he said in his video.
“I swam all the way back to get another boat, and by the time that I got the second boat, Brandon [Nelson] was already on his tenth light, so there was no way I was gonna beat him,” Ryan said.
Ryan explained that he was initially in third place until his boat capsized, which caused him to take additional time to swim back and get another boat to use.
Meanwhile, production allowed Devin to swim without retrieving a new boat, seeming to help him while his teammate, Leroy, struggled. Devin finished before Leroy, so he wouldn’t automatically go into elimination.
On the other hand, production told Ryan to follow the specific rule and be placed last for the guys on his team, meaning he’d automatically go into elimination.
It’s not the first complaint about Season 40’s filming or production, as other castmates, including Averey Tressler and Jordan Wiseley, have been vocal.
Viewers will discover Ryan’s fate in Episode 2, as his team’s winning players decide who he’ll face with his spot on the line.
The Challenge: Battle of the Eras airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on MTV.
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