Twenty-one years ago, in the summer of 2004, 36 Real World and Road Rules alumni went to New Mexico to film Battle of the Sexes 2. The cast had almost all of the most popular Challenge names of the era — but has the season withstood the test of time and remained one of the best Challenge seasons?
The Good
Battle of the Sexes 2 came off the heels of four successful Challenge seasons that laid the groundwork for the franchise. Battle of the Seasons, the first Battle of the Sexes, The Gauntlet, and The Inferno made The Challenge a show that was an innovative presence in the competition reality genre. It was more than just an extension of the Real World and Road Rules, and by this point, some people were establishing themselves as standout competitors.
Battle of the Sexes 2 really seemed to collect the who’s who of Challengers. Almost all of the big names from the franchise were on this season like Coral, Mike “The Miz,” Theo, Veronica, Katie, Rachel, Tonya, and Abram. We also had rookies who were seen on super popular Real World and Road Rules seasons, which created a buzzy Challenge cast.
This season was appealing to the franchise because Battle of the Sexes is a clear, easy to understand concept. Viewers can grasp this format, even if they’ve never seen The Challenge, Real World, or Road Rules before. Once the season started airing, the rookie and veteran dynamic started to emerge. This was the first season where this became a factor in game play, but it certainly wouldn’t become the last.
Battle of the Sexes 2 really highlights the one thing that differentiated The Challenge from other competition reality shows: the season-to-season relationship dynamics. Shows like Survivor or Big Brother generally featured completely fresh casts each season, but viewers now knew to expect repeat faces on The Challenge. Sexes 2 also demonstrated that formats could return and evolve, because it was the first sequel format (other than Real World vs. Road Rules).
The Bad
Looking at Battle of the Sexes 2, it feels like Era 1’s closest thing we have to a modern Challenge. It had a lot of the most prominent names of the time, but it felt like production was clinging onto story lines that ended on the Gauntlet or the Inferno.
Meanwhile, the cast was overrun with rookies (though this was somewhat inevitable during earlier seasons). Seventeen of the 36 cast members were new to The Challenge, and eight of them never did another main series Challenge: Angela, Arissa, Chris, Jacquese, Nick, Sophia, Shawn, and Steven. This rookie/veteran ratio is very close to more recent casts like Spies, Lies and Allies or Vets & New Threats.
Also, like modern Challenge seasons that don’t have gender equality, most of the daily missions were painfully unbalanced. This resulted in the women only earning two wins all season (though the men threw the final daily mission, giving the women three total wins).
Despite the rookies making nearly half of the cast, most of them were eliminated before the final. This was especially obvious on the men’s side, where all three finalists were already Challenge champions. Then, two of them (Eric and Dan), never returned to The Challenge. Theo would do one more season, Fresh Meat, where he delivered his worst performance and left the franchise to become a polarizing (but admittedly successful) comedian.
Sexes 2’s form also struggled, because unlike the first Battle of the Sexes, there was no scoreboard. Instead, players had to nominate themselves to become “team captains,” a group that would make the inner circle on the winning team. The losers would need to send home one of their team captains, so this position became a death trap for the women. This was a misfire on two fronts, because some fans wanted to see the merit-based scoreboard return. More notably, the season deviated from the elimination rounds that were introduced after the first Battle of the Sexes, and it’s the only Challenge season since The Gauntlet without elimination rounds.
Is Battle of the Sexes 2 a Top-Tier Season
Production did so many things right when casting Battle of the Sexes 2, but the season doesn’t feel like a revolution in the Challenge world. In fact, the season is quit forgettable compared to other seasons of the time.
It feels like Battle of the Sexes 2 was produced during a trial and error period of the Challenge’s development, and most of the decisions ended up being errors. The format felt wrong, and predictably, the men dominated. There’s a reason we haven’t seen the Battle of the Sexes format return in over two decades.
On paper, it seemed like there should have been a lot of drama from the returning Challengers, but there were so many rookies that it felt like there were scapegoats, and this let the veterans avoid tough decisions. For example, we didn’t see a continuation of the Katie and Veronica feud from The Inferno — Veronica never needed to make a move to oppose Katie. As a result, we got petty fights between Tina and Tonya over cell phone usage.
Arguably, the most memorable moment from the season came on episode 5 when the fourth girl was eliminated. Ayanna (who was not treated like a big-name veteran) delivered a perpetually quoted and impassioned departure speech.
For most of the veterans who appeared on Battle of the Sexes 2, it’s just a bullet on their resumes. There are a few exceptions, like Coral’s leadership, Tonya’s party girl persona, and Tina establishing herself as a loud and feisty player. For most other players, this was just a vacation.
This does not mean Battle of the Sexes 2 is a bad season, but it’s also clear that the end result was not what production expected when they cast the season. MTV wanted a season that would highlight the veterans, essentially making the first class of “career Challengers.” This was a time when The Challenge was getting a lot of viewership on MTV and the network greenly two seasons to be filmed a year.
Instead, the game was dominated by people who laid low. Many of the big names left in the middle of the season, and four of the six finalists never returned to the main series after Battle of the Sexes 2. There was a bit too much chaos baked into the format of this season, and as a result, it eliminated the chaos that should have been created by cast members.
Stop Being Polite 