"Show sucks without him": The Challenge 41 fans react to Johnny Bananas' exit and Gabe Wai's win

The Challenge: Vets and New Threats returned with a new episode on August 20, 2025, which saw Johnny 'Bananas' Devenanzio get eliminated at the hands of Gabriel 'Gabe' Wai. Bananas.

The veteran's early exit from the competition triggered mixed reactions from netizens.

While many commended Gabe for outperforming Johnny, some were upset with the outcome.

In the previous week's episode, Bananas sparked outrage among his co-stars by claiming, "I am The Challenge!" That said, he caught the attention of several players.

Contrary to his declaration about himself, in the latest segment of the MTV show, Bananas lost the daily challenge and earned himself a spot in the elimination round.

He was put up against Gabe, whom the rest of the cast members had nominated.

The elimination task was an offense-defense task, which Gabe eased through, defeating Bananas by a large margin.

The Challenge fans took to X to share their opinions on Bananas' elimination, as one commented:

"Bananas is the challenge. Show sucks without him smh."

Many fans of The Challenge were surprised to see Bananas lose the elimination round.

"d*mn mr. “i am the challenge” getting last place in the daily and mopped in the elimination very embarrassing!" a fan wrote.

"usually they say that’s the way the cookie crumbles but I guess that’s the way the banana splits," another commented.

"I literally gasped when they revealed Gabe’s finish time. It wasn’t even CLOSE for the banana man," one user posted.

At the same time, some viewers of the MTV competitive series were satisfied with Bananas' elimination and Gabe's feat.

"GABE COMPLETED THAT IN 2 MINS OMG?? Bye bye bananas," a netizen reacted.

"bye bye bananas. guess you weren't the challenge after all," one user on X wrote.

"It’s a requirement to know how to run ropes in wwe. Johnny was kinda cooked from the start," another fan posted.

What was the elimination task in the latest episode of The Challenge season 41?

Bananas and his teammate for the week, Leka, lost the daily challenge, which required the contestants to race through a maze of shipping containers to find and complete a Sudoku puzzle.

Multiple teams failed to complete the task within the 45-minute time frame.

Among them were Bananas and Leka, who finished at the bottom of the leaderboard.

Since it was a male elimination, Bananas headed straight into the elimination arena.

At first, the winners of the daily challenge, Ben and Michaela, considered sending Derek C. into the arena; however, after the jury deliberated, they decided to send Gabe, the former WWE star, instead.

The elimination challenge was called 'Hold 'Em Back,' where the player in the offense had to collect and deposit three tokens in three goals, all while being tied to a harness.

Meanwhile, the defensive player had to prevent their opponent from reaching the targets and collecting the tokens.

The player with the most tokens collected by the end of the task would emerge victorious.

Although Bananas attempted to play the game strategically, knowing he could not outperform Gabe in strength, he struggled to keep up with his opponent.

At the end of two rounds, Bananas finished with a time of 11 minutes and 33 seconds, whereas Gabe finished within 2 minutes and 1 second.

With that, Bananas, the seven-time champion, was eliminated from the MTV show, becoming the fourth person evicted.

Stay tuned for more updates.