MTV & The Challenge Crack Down on Violence

Fans of The Challenge and other MTV reality shows may have noticed a shift in the edit shows edits. There’s a lot less violence.

In a recent Tweet from Kelsey Owens, she addresses the omission of a fight on her show Siesta Keys. She responded to a fan, stating it was edited out as part of an MTV rule.

If you’re on Paramount+ you might notice a few episodes are missing. Most notably, episode 4 of The Ruins when Tonya and Veronica get into a fight. They’ve also omitted episode 1 of The Duel 2 when the notorious CT and Adam fight took place.

Some smaller fights still remain on the service, like Tina punching Beth on The Duel. We can also see flashback clips of these incidents sprinkled in other seasons.

This is likely part of CBS’s direction during the ViacomCBS merge. Gamer, who is a very reliable source of spoilers and inside information, seems to confirm this. However, smaller arguments remain on the season. We saw Devin and Josh fight during Double Agents, and Josh shoved Devin.

I don’t think CBS quite understands why people watch reality TV. Fights are a big part of the appeal, and now we’re missing some of the bigger moments from prior seasons. It also makes watching the show confusing. It’s one thing to remove a fight; it’s another to remove the competition from an episode. At a minimum, they need to stop being lazy. Anyone watching Paramount+ pays for the service. They ought to have the decency to make the competitive parts of the show obtainable and just edit out the fight.

Moving forward, we might lose some good moments and big names from the show. This rule further separates The Challenge from its origins.