Cheating On 'The Challenge' Never Ends Well

It’s easy to watch The Challenge from the comfort of my living room with a full bag of Doritos on my lap and criticize some of the competitors for not playing hard enough. But these players were chosen for the game because of their athletic prowess and when someone cheats, it sort of cheapens the competition. Maybe the UK team felt it was the only way to finally get ahead, but nothing gets by TJ. And when the UK team cheated on The Challenge Wednesday night, it cost them another win.

The objective of the latest competition was for each team to get the best time in figuring out the codes to remove 16 metal bars from their life-sized hamster wheel and then use those bars to put together a map of their country. Whichever team did it in the fastest time would win and earn the ability to send someone from the other team to the Proving Ground. As Challenge competitions go, it was a doozy. And when the UK team members thought they might not finish in time to give themselves a win after losing to the US team last week, Theo took matters into his own hands (literally).

He pulled off two of the locks they were supposed to remove with codes and it helped them earn enough time to win the challenge. Unfortunately, after announcing that the UK team had the fastest time, TJ revealed that he knew all about their cheating and once again, they were the official losing team.

To date, there haven’t been many cheating scandals from The Challenge. In most cases, any cheating is related to couples on the show rather than the game itself. And violence is what leads to most disqualifications on The Challenge. But sometimes you do what you have to in order to win and in the UK team’s case, it meant cheating their way to victory. And they would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling cameras that catch everything. You know, the ones designed to record their every movement and word since this is a reality TV show and all.

The fact that Theo and the rest of his team thought they could get away with cheating is sort of sad. I don't agree with cheating on a show like The Challenge, where each competition is more grueling than the last. I do, however, understand how the UK team just wanted one win after almost losing a player last week and succumbing to the US team. Thankfully, they didn't lose a player this time either since Bear beat Wes, but it could have gone the other way.

Right now, it’s not clear if the UK team will face any major repercussions for cheating on The Challenge. If nothing else, they were once again put in the hot seat to nominate one of their own players for the Proving Ground and they almost lost a valuable competitor. At this rate, the UK team is going to be thrown on the Proving Ground every episode before the US team feels any major losses of its own.

Things could have gone a lot differently after the UK team’s recent competition loss. If Bear hadn’t beat Wes on the Proving Ground, the UK team could have lost a player and the cheating would have been partly to blame. Luckily for them, they were able to skirt by, but if the UK team wants to redeem itself, the players will have to win the next challenge fairly. If not, the US will have yet another leg up on them and the team full of Challenge vets and alpha males and females will get even stronger.

The Challenge airs on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on MTV.