Johnny Bananas Labels ‘The Challenge 40’ a ‘Pissing Contest’ (Exclusive)

• Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio won the first daily challenge for his era on the Aug. 14 premiere of The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras
• The seven-time Challenge champ tells PEOPLE he came into Battle of the Eras wondering if he has “what it takes to compete against the best of the last of all 40 seasons”
• Aneesa Ferreira tells PEOPLE she realized season 40 “was going to be hell” after discovering how the elimination deliberations worked

The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras sees legends of the game returning to take on more recent stars and aspiring champs. Of course, the vets came in thinking they ran the game.

“I look at The Challenge — and I think a lot of the older vets did as well — as our domain, and you want to protect that at all costs,” Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio tells PEOPLE in a joint interview with Aneesa Ferreira. “And as much as we’d love to see the newer generation come up and make their mark, we’re not going to make it easy for them to come in and take the crown. There definitely was a pissing contest between the old guard and the new guard; the ones who lit the torch and then the ones who were going to carry the torch.”

Devenanzio, 42, has won The Challenge more than any other player in the game’s history with a total of seven victories. He returned to season 40 after being the first person out on The Traitors season 2, which gave him extra ammo to continue to prove himself on Battle of the Eras.

“I was kicked off on The Duel because I wasn’t seen as a threat and I was the first one eliminated on Traitors for the exact opposite reason,” Devenanzio, who placed first for Era 2 in the first challenge of season 40, says. “If I don’t make it to a final and win every season, I’m washed up, I’m over the hill, I need to retire, I’m an old man, I need a hip replacement. So coming into season 40, it was answering, do I still have what it takes to compete against the best of the last of all 40 seasons, and what’s that going to look like?”

During season 40’s Aug. 14 premiere, Devenanzio, along with Era 2’s female winner Laurel Stucky, had to decide who would go into the elimination challenge alongside Era 2’s last-place finishers Kellyanne Judd and Ryan Kehoe.

“When I do a season, I don’t really have anyone that I really give a s— about that I’m actually friends with,” Devenanzio explains. “So it makes my life easy, because I don’t care [who] I vote against or vote in. This season, I had so many people that I was close to. My team, I’m super close with Emily [Schromm], Laurel. So I was looking around at everyone here and I’m like, ‘This is going to be tough, because at some point you’re going to have to start turning on people who are your friends.’ It was going to be an uphill battle.”

Similarly, Era 1 winners Chris “CT” Tamburello and Rachel Robinson had to choose who would go in against last-place finishers Katie Cooley and Mark Long, Era 3 winners Tori Deal and Cory Wharton had to pick who would battle against losers Leroy Garrett and Nia Moore and Era 4 winners Michele Fitzgerald and Horacio Gutiérrez Jr. needed to throw someone in against his girlfriend Nurys Mateo and Theo Campbell.

Era 1’s Derek Kosinski knew how tough of a decision it would be to pick between him and Darrell Taylor, so he threw himself into elimination. “I don’t want this to be hard on one of my best friends,” Kosinski, 40, said on the Aug. 14 episode. “He’s such a good person and he’s looked out for me in the past. I owe you, dude, and this is the time to step in.”

Ferreria, also part of Era 1, agrees that “it was difficult” to choose who to put into elimination during deliberations in The Chamber.

“I had some people I wasn’t very fond of, so I thought it was going to be easier for me. I realized it was going to be hell,” Ferreria, 42, says. “I had a lot of friendships over the Eras — some longer than others — and how was I going to be able to vote with a good conscience?”

The Real World: Chicago alum also worried about who she might go up against. “This season was stacked [with] the women,” she says. “So any woman that I had to go against, I was like, ‘S—.’”

Ferreria thought that with close friend Robinson, 41, winning Era 1, she would be safe from elimination. However, Robinson and Tamburello, 41, decided she would choose who went in for the men and he would pick the female competitor who saw elimination, leaving Ferreria vulnerable.

“How many eliminations can a person go in?” Ferreria, who’s been in 26 Challenge eliminations in her career, questions. “I feel like after 20, that’s the cap. You are no longer allowed to be thrown in.”

While viewers will have to wait until the Aug. 21 episode to see who ends up in the first elimination, Devenanzio promises that season 40 will be bigger than any of its predecessors.

“Usually we have one or two really cool, big budget, stunty, awesome Challenges. We have five this season,” he says. “It was like they just kept on upping the ante and every Challenge got more crazy. I thought we’d seen everything that they had to throw our way — in this one, they did it.”

The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on MTV.