Inside MTV Reality: Welcome Back Again to The Challenge All-Stars -- and Something Twisty

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

Greetings to all in the blogosphere... and if we have not spoken on here as of yet, a belated Happy New Year to you and we hope you are safe and sound after a holiday break that we hope was nice and merry. As you can imagine, things have been light on the blog as new priorities have taken precedent as is my new passion of doing video work including the new DC Vegas XIII series on YouTube... but this one hasn't forgotten about DCBLOG as we enter our site's fourteenth year of serving all of you on here.

As we return to this site, let's sort out where things are in the world of competitive athletics: we know now it's yet another rematch in the Super Bowl that's just to come with the Chiefs and Eagles set to renew acquaintances for the second time in twenty-four months. It's exactly half of that time's length that separates me from another 19-day binge-watch of the Olympics as the 2026 Winter Games in Italy approach... and the week after the Big Game comes a new format coming to the NBA All-Star Game taking place in my Bay Area neck of the woods, among other things. And then, there's this.

Photos: MTV/Jonne Roriz

A tweet by our longtime friend and a fellow colleague on this beat of covering this little thing we have covered for well over a decade, Brian Cohen, brings up an interesting statistic that makes us scratch our heads and wonder how time has flown by. When rare holiday weeks off are tossed aside, MTV's The Challenge and its various spinoff iterations have been on our TV's and our streaming devices for almost three consecutive years... or 151 of the 191 weeks since August of 2021. And after everything that transpired in a milestone 40th season over the fall and winter, the party goes on after the crowning of a now five-time winner and an unprecedented tie for the gold for the women on Battle of the Eras.

Both Mr. Bus Drivers Route, myself and everyone else in this community have been through a lot watching the fifth major pro sport... and it has also given reason for a lot of us to subscribe to the Paramount+ service. And while this one here stays loyal to all the streamers I'm part of when others decide it's not enough to stay on, it also gave us a mouth-watering addition to the Challenge franchise when All-Stars debuted with its rebrand from CBS All-Access also back four years ago. There, we were mystified by seeing competitors we haven't seen on the show in years compete once again... and it made an instant impact to the point where a lot of fans like you would forget to think it's a spinoff.

The fourth and most recent installment of All-Stars was actually taped in the spring of 2023, but because of the standoff that shut down Hollywood it wasn't until almost a year later that we saw another stacked group take to South Africa and saw a deserved champion in the end. But this time around, the focus shifts drastically like night and day to something totally different: for the first time, an element of the flagship will be thrust upon this series as this time it's a themed installment... but one that we are all familiar with from the '10s -- and it's one format that Brian made his podcast debut a dozen years ago.

With another crop of familiar and fresh faces... and with so many interesting dynamics, once again the question is this: Who can overcome the past for the sake of winning the cash? Welcome back, Challenge Nation... as we at DCBLOG offer our first look at the fifth edition of our main subject's longest-running spinoff: The Challenge All-Stars: Rivals before it premieres tonight.

The Look: The Caucus Challenge Goes Wintertime

 CAUTION  Videos Embedded Below Contain Adult Language and Content Intended for a Mature Audience. Viewer Discretion is Advised.

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

We have just had the merriest time of year to end the year that just past us, and for many of you the vibes of the coldest of the four seasons just continues on after the holidays. That includes the nor'easter that blasted through much of the East Coast that extended many school kids' winter break and saw a snowball fight outside the U.S. Capitol building... a far different cry from what happened in that very same place four years earlier. And for this blogger here who had a ball binge-watching last year's action in Paris, he is already feeling anxious and anticipatory for the yuletide blockbuster that is the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan & Cortina, Italy that begins in just over a year from now.

Pics Courtesy: Dre Media

Though activity around here at DCBLOG have been light in the course of the last couple years (man of the house duties, Vegas vlogs on YouTube and the like), there is one thing that has brought this site back to life to begin the new year and this first post of '25. And it is of the one thing that we have followed throughout the course of our now thirteen years' worth of posts that have gone Inside MTV Reality and beyond... and it has nothing to do with The Challenge or anything else. Rather, it's one inspired by the fifth major pro sport... and one who we first met back eight long years ago at a launch event for the controversial thirtieth season of a now 40-season old reality pioneer: Secaucus, New Jersey YouTuber Andres Rodriguez and the world surrounding his Dre.Media empire.

The long holiday weekend we are currently in -- and the time that all of us in Challenge Nation have on our side ahead of the next chapter in All-Stars Season 5 at month's end -- will perhaps give a lot of you a chance to sample one esteemed All-Star as he extends his reach to not one, but two shows on two totally different television platforms. But for those seeking something more competitive and more of our liking rather than just people having to play one of those social games inside of a medieval castle (and him also following in the footsteps of three of his distinguished colleagues who made us go wild last year), there's the latest thing from Dre: a first-ever wintertime version of The Caucus Challenge.