The trust has officially been broken between Johnny Bananas and Zach Nichols. On the Feb. 20 episode of The Challenge: War of the Worlds, Zach inadvertently got Bananas thrown into an elimination by helping Johnny’s nemesis, Wes Bergmann land in the top three (Tribunal) of the weekly challenge. This gave Wes the opportunity to vote Bananas and his partner, Morgan Willett, onto the Killing Floor. At that point, Bananas got to choose who he wanted to go against, and he exacted his revenge by choosing Zach and his partner, Zahida Allen. Bananas and Morgan wound up losing the elimination round, but Johnny was more pissed about Zach’s betrayal than the fact that he was sent home.
During the episode, Zach insisted that he didn’t mean to throw Wes the ball that helped him with the challenge, and told Johnny that his “head wasn’t in the right place.” However, Johnny was convinced that Zach made a secret alliance with Wes behind his back, and now that the episode’s aired, he stands by that conclusion. “Do not fall for Zach’s crocodile tears,” Johnny told Us Weekly. “I’ve made that mistake in the past. When you see a man of his size and stature start to cry, you’re like…there’s no way this guy can be lying, because there’s no one in their right mind who would be able to do that. Zach’s able to do that.”
This isn’t the first time that Bananas has felt betrayed by Zach. Back on Battle of the Exes II, a similar incident went down. “He told me — I don’t talk to Wes, Wes is a piece of s***, I can’t stand him. Meanwhile, he’s working with Wes!” Bananas explained. “Zach wins a challenge, then has the ability to determine the order people go. I pull him aside and I’m like…put Wes first. Where does Zach put him? Almost dead last. He’s like…oh man, it was a mistake, I wasn’t thinking. Wes goes on to win that challenge, sends me in, and me and Nany [Gonzalez] go to exile.” The outcome that time was different — Bananas and Nany won their way back into the game and took Zach out — but the memory still stuck.
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” Bananas admitted in the Us Weekly interview. “Well, shame on me.” Before coming onto War of the Worlds, Johnny was under the impression that he and Zach were going to have a “clean slate” after a few seasons of tension, but it didn’t work out as planned.
“Zach is very sneaky,” he said. “Zach never has important game conversations on camera, which is why there’s no footage of him and Wes making any sort of deal or pitting this. Trust me when I tell you — everything Zach did was 100 percent intentional. He tried to be like…I wasn’t thinking, my head’s not in the right space,I shouldn’t be here, I have family issues — and I believed him again! This 6’4″ monster of a man is sitting here in tears and I’m like, dude, really? Then it all came out. Everything he said about not working with Wes was completely false.” In the end, Zach said he’ll “never trust a f***ing word that comes out of [Zach]’s mouth ever again.”