'The Challenge USA': Wes Bergmann Explains His Decision to Retire From the Franchise (Exclusive)

The Sept. 21 episode of The Challenge USA marked the end of the road for one of the franchise's most well-known players. Thanks to the Hopper, Wes Bergmann was chosen to go into elimination against Survivor winner Chris Underwood. While it was a close battle, Chris ended up with the win, marking the end of Wes' time on the show. Wes has been vocal about The Challenge USA being his final season of the series. During a recent chat with PopCulture.com, he explained exactly why he decided to retire after his most recent turn on The Challenge. 

Wes' Challenge journey began way back in 2006 when he appeared on the 12th season of The Challenge, Fresh Meat. He has since gone on to win three seasons of the show — The Duel, Rival 2, and All Stars Season 3. Even though he's still at the top of his game, he has said that the second season of The Challenge USA will be his last ever season of The Challenge. On top of becoming a father, Wes explained that his mounting responsibilities with his business endeavors are part of the reason behind his decision to take a step back. 

"My business has taken off, now it's too challenging to leave it. It's a scheduling thing. I'm very, very sad," Wes explained. "Why it's hard for the fans and everybody to kind of wrap their head around it is because I'm not sitting here saying, 'I dislike it,' or, 'I am not good at it anymore,' and I'm obviously in great shape and all this kind of stuff. So, it's like none of the... There's not any on-paper reasons to not do it. But, what they're not seeing is just how hard it is for a business owner of my size to leave for two months."

While he noted that some business owners can run things remotely, that it's necessarily possible to do when confined to The Challenge house. He continued, "There's more people that depend on me for their livelihood than there are entire Challengers in the game. And there's more money for me to lose than the entire prize pool combined every single season, so it's too irresponsible."

Wes' final season of The Challenge was certainly an interesting one. Between the situation with Josh Martinez, who Wes stressed is "not a rival" of his, and some serious social media drama, the 3-time champion certainly left a mark on his final season of the show. For his take on it all, head to PopCulture.com's YouTube page to see everything that Wes has to say.

Wes' time on The Challenge USA (and The Challenge itself) may be over, but the season is still underway. New episodes of The Challenge USA air on CBS on Thursday nights at 10 p.m. ET. All of the episodes that have already aired on CBS can be viewed on Paramount+.