Before The Challenge's Johnny "Bananas" Devenanzio was the guy most likely to dominate host T.J. Lavin's final, he was actually kind of a layup. 

"I lasted a total of 24 hours on my first season," Johnny recounted in an exclusive interview with E! News' Francesca Amiker. "So I didn't think I was ever going to be invited back, but apparently they saw something in me." 

Because while Johnny may not have seemed all that appealing on his sole episode of The Duel in 2006—bested by fellow The Real World: Key West alum Tyler Duckworth in a watermelon-lifting challenge, he was the first cast member to go home—T.J. did bid farewell to the then-rookie by telling him, "I'll see you in the future, no doubt." 

And the California native wasn't about to be a quitter.

"They wanted to give me a second shot," mused the 42-year-old, "and I think I made the best of it." 

Nearly two decades later, he's arguably the MTV franchise's, uh, top banana, nabbing 68 daily challenge wins en route to championships on The Island, The Ruins, Rivals, Battle of the Exes, Free Agents, Rivals III and Total Madness and a spot on The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras, premiering on Wednesday, Aug. 14 at 8 p.m. 

"Here I am now, 18 seasons later," summed up Johnny, sitting down with fellow Battle of the Eras stars Rachel Robinson, Leroy Garrett and Olivia Kaiser to preview the season that will see them competing alongside vets from their era of the series, based on when they first suited up to compete in Hall Brawls and Pole Wrestles.

"I spent the best years of my life competing and bleeding and sweating all over the globe," said Johnny, "and I wouldn't trade it for the world."

And Johnny isn't the only one stunned to still be sporting his Challenge jersey. 

"My very first season, everybody was like, 'This is going to be the last season,'" Leroy, 39, said of competing on 2011's Rivals, "And I'm like, 'I just got here!' And now umpteen seasons later, we're still going." 

Rachel also didn't think she'd still be bunking with the coworkers she met as a teen. 

"We never would have imagined that at 41, that I'd be going back for season 40 and be in better shape than I was at 19," said the Road Rules: Campus Crawl star, who debuted in 2003's Battle of the Sexes. "And I don't think any of us imagined that the show would be bigger at this stage than it was even back then."

Thankfully though, the band of Real World and Road Rules vets—later joined by standouts from other reality series like Big Brother, Survivor, Love Island and Ex on the Beach—never stopped believin'.

"We’re like one of those bands that was super famous in the 80s and then somehow was able to reinvent themselves in the 90s, and then again in the 2000s," explained Johnny. "And we're still reinventing ourselves." 

Because while there's no shortage of reality stars willing to, say, use their body heat to melt a block of ice in the hopes of pocketing some cash, Challenge fans have been rooting on their favorites for literal decades. 

"There's people who have been following me since I was out of college," noted Johnny. "Our fans are the most loyal fans out there. They've stuck with us. That's one of the main reasons why the show has been as successful for as long as it is. We might not be the trendiest or the flashiest, but we are 100 percent the grittiest. And that's why we're still here." 

Though not everyone is convinced the show has necessarily changed for the better. 

"Being gone for 10 years, it was so great to have such a clear before and after," noted Emily Schromm, who last competed on 2013's Rivals II. "I think it's slightly more rehearsed. I think there's more of a TV element that we have grown accustomed to, but that didn't use to be the case. It was a little bit more rugged."

While she's more of a show-up-and-go-hard-AF-to-earn-your-spot type, "People want their moments," the 35-year-old explained of seeing some competitors playing for the cameras. "So it's a little different than it used to be." 

And if you ask Tori Deal, who arrived at Dirty 30 in 2017 fresh off back-to-back stints on Are You The One?, the series has gone through several iterations in the past decade. 

For a stretch, the 31-year-old opined, "People were doing the most to get a lot of attention, because then you would make money on social media." 

Then the online trolls decided they would like a word. 

"Now people are a little bit more concerned about how they're viewed, because they don't want to be torn apart," Tori explained. "So it's this interesting dynamic of, 'Do I show up and give a show? Or am I going to protect myself online so that way I don't I get torn apart by people on Twitter?'"

And as much as OGs like Johnny have taken their turns trolling the newbies—"There have been some misses in the past," he said, noting the casting process isn't quite as rigorous as it was in the early aughts—he believes there are a few rookies worth championing. 

"They've had some people that they've cast that obviously were just made for this world and Olivia's, hands down, one of them," he said, citing the 32-year-old's run to the finals on her first season in late 2022. "The way she’s come on to this show, she's a natural."

Admittedly, the Love Island alum wasn't exactly a student of the game. 

"I didn't really know what I was getting myself into," Olivia acknowledged of receiving The Challenge invite. "Like, 'I'll just try it out.' I get there and I was like, 'Wait, we have to do what?' And then I just kind of clocked in." 

But Big Brother vet Kyland Young definitely did his homework before turning up on The Challenge: USA in 2022. 

"As a new person, you get the benefit of learning from all these people," he explained, noting he studied the moves of champs like Darrell Taylor and Chris "C.T." Tamburello. "That's a huge advantage. Because Darrell didn't get to watch Darrell compete to learn from him, C.T., any of these guys. They didn't get these years of getting to study the game and watch their mistakes and their victories and learn from it. So I came in really grateful to have that. Hopefully it's enough."