Originally, titled Real World/Road Rules Challenge, (and even previously before that the Road Rules: All Stars, which I didn’t even know), The Challenge is MTV’s greatest creation. Take your most interesting kids from The Real World, throw in some of the more charismatic Road Rules folks, and put them together on a show featuring alcohol, athletics, and sex; sort of like this day and age’s version of The Battle Of The Network Stars, except with alcohol and sex. Oh yes, and performance enhancing drugs. Can’t forget about those. This show doesn’t have Mark Burnett’s amazing landscape of high definition sunset shots, but if you’re looking for true good vs. evil cohesive storylines and drama for your momma, this is the show for you.

The show was originally based on Real World contestants vs. Road Rules contestants, but they’ve changed it up over the years, which is partly because Road Rules is no more, and to maximize the insane personalities of the competitors. You either like people or don’t like people on this show. There’s not much gray in their characters. They’ve done a battle of the sexes, a rookies vs. veterans, a bad guys vs. good guys, and even a season where it was every man and woman for themselves. They’ve called seasons by names like Cutthroat, Ruins, Gauntlet, and Duel.

This season is called Rivals. The idea is that they are going to pair up two enemies based on previous seasons and together, they’ll have to win challenges and stay out of “The Jungle”. I remember first hearing about this idea on the BS Report, Bill Simmons’ podcast. He and the Tsar of Reality TV, Dave Jacoby read an email about the idea. It looks like MTV listened.

Some of the teams include CT and Adam (CT punched Adam, who is the son of one of the Commodores, in a previous season and the result was in the photo at the top of the page), Adam and Leroy (who just finished a season of the Real World together in Las Vegas in which Adam was kicked out), Cara Maria and Laurel (though, I’m sure anyone could’ve been Laurel’s enemy), and Kenny and Wes (who take that alpha male thing to a whole new level). MTV is promising fireworks and I imagine they’ll deliver.

Check out the cast mates from The Duel 2 talk about the CT and Adam fight from two years ago. These guys had to be separated on the reunion show, which probably meant that CT had to be separated from Adam. CT looks like he may kill someone some day. And these guys are teammates this year.

(If for whatever reason, the video disappears, you can see it on YouTube.)

It’s just too bad Brad and Darrell aren’t on the same team this season. This was the result of what happened when a drunken Brad couldn’t control his mouth and pushed Darrell over the edge. Darrell had bad intentions. (Might want to turn the volume down on this clip as they don’t bleep out the curses.)

(If for whatever reason, the video disappears, you can see it on YouTube.)

The show begins tonight, July 22 at 10PM EST and PST. Don’t miss it. It’s must-see junk TV.

Photo of Adam was published by MTV’s blog