Well before the cast of “Jersey Shore” fist-pumped their way into our clubs and hearts of MTV viewers, two popular  reality television shows, “The Real World” and “Road Rules,” combined to create the “Real World/Road Rules Challenge.” 

 On Wednesday, the show’s twenty-first season premieres, which will be entitled “Rivals.” This challenge will be set in Costa Rica and Argentina, and will force former nemeses to become partners in an effort to win $300,000. Seven male and seven female teams will compete for this prize, playing against teams of their same gender.

Although this challenge will be similar to previous seasons in some ways, it is the first season of the show that will not include a contestant from “Road Rules,” which was cancelled in 2007.

But the show will include many familiar faces from “The Real World” and “The Challenge: Fresh Meat.”  BMXer T.J. Lavin will return as the show’s host for his eleventh season.

Although the show has lost some of its crazier characters in the past couple of seasons, and the brawls have lost a lot of tension lately, this challenge seems promising. New bad boys and biggest rivals Wes Bergmann and Kenny Santucci return as a pair, which should prove interesting due to their love triangle with Wes’ “Real World: Austin” girlfriend Johanna Botta.

Chris “C.T.” Tamburello will try to survive more than a day without getting kicked out for fighting other contestants. Canada-native and Cornell alumn Evan Starkman will return in hopes of winning the challenge for the third time. After leaving MTV’s latest installment of “Real World: Las Vegas,” Adam Royer will be paired with fellow housemate Leroy Garrett. 

The women of “The Challenge: Rivals” are less impressive, since the female cast is less established in the reality realm. Aneesa Ferreira and Robin Hibbard will be paired together, due to their drunken fights on “The Challenge: The Duel.” And the coupling of Evelyn Smith and Paula Meronek should prove to be heated after Paula was double-crossed by Kenny and Johnny Devenanzio, causing her to lose the final prize on “The Challenge: The Island.”

This season’s unique formatting and familiar cast could be just the kick that the series needs to keep up with this summer’s latest reality shows.

Reach Lindsay Berg here.