The story behind the newest 'The Challenge' super-alliance, according to Johnny Bananas

It was, up until Wednesday’s premiere of MTV’s The Challenge: Total Madness, the rivalry to end all rivalries.

Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio and Wes Bergmann have spent so many seasons going at each other, double-crossing and double-double-crossing and sneaking around to form alliances to battle.

Finally, in the first episode, we found out a big twist: the two of them are actually going to work together for the first time.

So how did THAT happen? In my recent Q&A with Bananas, he revealed that it was a fateful trip to the MTV Video Music Awards that sealed what ended up going down on Wednesday.

“After War of the Worlds 2 and he went home to Bear and got blindsided, and I got screwed by Team USA, we went to the VMAs and took a car together,” Bananas told For The Win recently. “I’m like, ‘for two of the smartest guys in the game, two of the most strategic thinkers, the fact that we’re doing this season after season, all we’re doing is maker their lives easier and our lives more difficult.

‘So, for once, why don’t we look at it as in War of the Worlds 1, you got me. War of the Worlds 2, I repaid the favor. Let’s go into this season with a clean slate.'”

This move had been in the mix, Bananas said, before War of the Worlds 1 after Bergmann returned after some time off.

“I felt like I stuck to my end of the bargain on that, he didn’t,” Bananas claimed. “I ended up being sent home on account of him. Last season, I wanted to return the favor and I did.”

It’s a smart call given how powerful and smart both vets are.

“When we go into a season focused on each other and only each other, you know who benefits? Everyone else. We’re making other people’s lives easier,” he said.

“This has allowed the new kids and some of the older guys who don’t have a lot in the tank,” he continued, “to sit back and not punch in for a week or two, because they know as long as Wes and I are there, we’ll be going at each other, everyone else can sit back and relax and let the bullets whiz over their heads. So we’ve been saying it for a few seasons now.”

There was skepticism, but Bananas hints there was a point where Wes could have “turned the tides” on him and didn’t.

“It’s a pretty amazing outcome when all is said and done,” he teased further. “You could not script the way this thing all pans out.”