Does Winning The World Championship Makes Jordan the GOAT?

Now that The Challenge: World Championship is over, Jordan has claimed another victory. This is his fourth time winning a season, putting him on a very short list of people who have won that many times.

Jordan has done 9 seasons, and he’s won 4 of them — which means he has a 44% win rate. This number doesn’t include Champs vs. Pro (otherwise he’d be at a 40% win rate), but it does include All-Stars and (obviously) the World Championship.

Of course, there’s no concrete way to measure the greatest challenger of all time, but if you polled the fandom, there’d only be a few names that get frequent mentions. Specifically, we can expect to hear Bananas, CT, or Darrell, because all of them have 4+ victories.

On the World Championship, Darrell also competed and made it far, but he didn’t get to the final. While Darrell won his first 4 seasons, he’s done six more main season shows — and he hasn’t seen a final since his victory on Fresh Meat. He also did three All Stars seasons and the World Championship. This gives him a 29% win rate, but again, this omits Champs vs. Pros. Darrell won that season, which required him to defeat Jordan, Wes, Bananas, CT, and five pro athletes. If we include that show, Darrell’s win rate is 33%.

Then, we have Bananas, who has the most wins: 7. But, Bananas has also done more seasons than anyone else: 22. This gives him a 32% win rate (33% if we factor in his win and loss on the Champs spinoffs). But, being such a seasoned competitor, Bananas has other interesting stats attached to his name, like the fact that he’s lost more eliminations than anyone else.

Perhaps Jordan’s biggest competition for the title of GOAT is CT — who has 5 wins, but his career has spanned many eras and he’s been on a particular high over the past few years. Over his 19 seasons, CT’s win rate is 26%, but it shoots to 32% when you factor in his two wins across his three Champs spinoff appearances.

A few other names that may be mentioned are Landon, who has a 75% win rate, but that’s because he only did 4 seasons and won 3. There’s also Wes, who has won 3 of his 15 seasons, giving him a 20% win rate (17% with Champs spinoffs). But, Wes has more elimination wins than anyone else with 15 across his career —20 factoring in the Champs spinoffs.

Wins don’t mean everything when talking about the greatest Challengers of all time, but you’d have a hard time arguing that someone who hasn’t won multiple seasons deserves the title.

We also need to consider how competitive seasons are. When we look at people like Darrell or Landon, they earned multiple wins on Gauntlet and Inferno seasons. Yes, those victories count, but winning Inferno 1 was far less competitive than winning The Challenge: World Champions. And when we look at Jordan’s track record, his victories are on some of the most competitive seasons in history.

Jordan’s elimination record is also quite impressive. He’s won 10 times and lost 5 (omitting redemptions, the Ride or Dies battle back, being a mercenary on Vendettas, and Champs vs. Pros). Very few people have such a strong win ratio, and very few people have stacked up so many wins.

So, is Jordan really the best? The answer depends on the viewer, but you’d have a hard time claiming he’s not one of the top 3 males to do the show. His win ratio (looking at season and elimination wins) is quite high compared to other competitors. But I think Jordan gets a particular edge because he’s so crafty. He has one hand, but he almost always manages to find a way to excel. And he’s really skilled in random, unexpected areas — like construction work and handling rope.

If someone like Landon did more seasons, I think he’d be serious competition to take the title from Jordan, but if we look at the data we have across all the Challenge seasons, I think Jordan might be our current best, and the victory from the World Championship could have pushed him into the top spot.