The new season of MTV's The Challenge: Rivals 2 will present 32 new and familiar faces with a whole new slew of challenges starting on Wednesday, July 10. But one thing that will undoubtedly remain the same?
The season — shot in Thailand — will be filled with plenty of drama between ex-lovers, longstanding enemies, and new and old players.
"It was old school kids versus new school kids," newcomer Theresa Gonzalez told Us Weekly. "From the very beginning it was a battle of veterans and us rookies."
"There was a lot of judgment going into it because we'd seen each other on TV before," Jemmye Carroll told Us (the Mississippi-bred reality star was previously on Real World: New Orleans). "It was one big mosh pit."
And a rowdy one at that! In an exclusive preview clip from the season, the guys partner up with their rivals in a challenge that forces them to literally cling onto one another for dear life. While one half of each pair hangs by a rope several feet over a huge body of water, their partner leaps at them from increasingly long distances on a pier.
"If I'm going to get the opportunity to repeatedly run into him as hard as I can and squeeze him as hard as I can, I'm going to go ahead and strap the ginger up," resident bad boy CT Tamburello says in the clip, referring to partner Wes Bergmann.
"Unnecessary," Wes shoots back, later telling the cameras, "I really don't feel all that happy about having CT run into my arms, but it is what it is. It's therapeutic, and we're gonna work this sh-t out."
"CT and I have the longest relationship of anyone in the house and it didn't start well from day one," Wes told Us Weekly. "So now it's going into a decade of us going country to country, not getting along."
The series will also see CT reuniting with ex Diem Brown, who finished up chemotherapy for her second bout of ovarian cancer just two weeks before filming the show, which will make for a "roller coaster" ride of a season, according to Brown.
"I really wanted to come back because I never wanted cancer to take away an opportunity and I wanted to feel passionately alive, to jump off buildings and be as active as other girls," she told Us. "I had a hard time feeling normal. …I started realizing I have a lot more battle scars from the second time with cancer that I didn't realize."
"Putting yourself in this show, a lot of your insecurities are brought to the forefront," she added. "There were some deja vu moments."
MTV's The Challenge: Rivals 2 will premiere on MTV on Wednesday, July 10 at 10 p.m. EST.
