‘The Challenge: Battle Of The Bloodlines’ — Opposite-Sex Teams At A Major Disadvantage?

As the current season of MTV’s The Challenge: Battle of the Bloodlines continues to develop, a recent change in rules may provide an unfair advantage for some teams. According to MTV, the show is now alternating how it handles eliminations from week to week, and the teams that benefit the most are the same-sex ones.

The disadvantage the new rule creates was put on display in the most recent episode of the show. With Jenna and Brianna narrowly escaping elimination in the opening episode, the pair seemed likely to make another trip to The Pit in the second installment.

The challenge that Brianna struggled with involved a dinner complete with cockroaches and grasshoppers. While the challenge was certainly a disgusting one that a lot of the teams had a hard time with completing, the effort put forth by Brianna and Jenna was particularly disappointing. So much so that TJ called them out for being the clear losers of the challenge.

However, despite their poor performance, the same-sex team was not sentenced to The Pit because, as TJ pointed out, the eliminations during this season of The Challenge would change from week to week depending on the type of games played.

If the challenge is male oriented, then only teams that had a male contestant would be eligible for elimination and vice versa. This means that even though Brianna and Jenna did an awful job at the cockroach eating challenge, they were not up for elimination because they did not have a male contestant on their team.

Unfortunately, this put Jill and Cohutta next in line for the elimination challenge, despite the fact that Jill performed a lot better than any of the other women on the show. Following their failure in The Pit, the two were sent packing.

Given the fact that Jill and Cohutta dominated the first episode, their early elimination was a shocking development. Further, their ousting highlighted just how much opposite-sex teams are at a disadvantage in the current season of the show.

Although anything can happen, fans should expect the final rounds of the show to include a majority of same-sex teams. This means that the chances Cara Maria and Jamie, KellyAnne and Anthony, and Leroy and Candice will make it far in the competition are not very high. That being said, is there a chance that one of these teams will make it through despite the change in rules?

According to Bustle, Cara Maria and Jamie do have one advantage over the competition given their intense level of competitiveness. In fact, Cara Maria is a physical trainer who enjoys being in the outdoors, which means she should feel fairly at home on The Challenge. Even still, the two will need to up their game if they want to stay ahead of the opposite-sex elimination rule.

As far as Leroy and Candice are concerned, the one thing they have going is Leroy’s massive strength. However, he has not been the smartest contestant on the show in years past, which means their success will largely be determined by how well he works with Candice.

Meanwhile, there are still a lot of questions about KellyAnne and Anthony. KellyAnne is certainly one of the more erratic players this year, which could work to their advantage. Additionally, Anthony appears to be a well-balanced individual and should be able to reign in KellyAnne when needed.

Whatever ends up happening with the new rules, it is clear that same-sex teams now have the advantage. However, The Challenge is known for switching things up, making it possible that things will even out in the coming episodes.

Tell us! Do you think opposite-sex teams are at a disadvantage on MTV’s The Challenge? Let us know in the comments below.

[Image via MTV]