Back in 2018, I made a decision to expand my focus to include the Movie Trivia Schmoedown – a combination of movie trivia and WWE entertainment. As the brand grew, my writing on here came to an end in November 2018 as I was given the chance to write for their new website, TriviaSD.com along with a number of other Schmoedown bloggers. Recently it was announced that as the crew’s focus is needed elsewhere, it was announced that the site will be coming to an end. This means that the Schmoedown will be making a return to this site!
First of all, I want to give a big thank yous:
- To Schmoedown creator and Chairman of the league Kristian Harloff and TriviaSD.com Managing Editor William Bibbiani for giving me the chance to write for the site
- To the cast and crew, who continue to create an amazing product that is just going from strength to strength
- To the fans, who have helped to create such an amazing community
Over the space of a couple of weeks, I am posting my articles from the site onto here. As some of these are almost a year old, some of them are somewhat outdated and may have proved to be completely off the mark.
Posted to TriviaSD.com 21/1/2019
We’re all well aware that the Schmoedown is equal parts movie trivia and entertainment, and as such we often see a number of rivalries and grudges developing in the league. As we approach a big event like Spectacular or Collision, we usually see a number of storylines come to the fore. Right now there are plenty of grudges between competitors and factions, so let’s have a reminder of who hates who in the build-up to Collision!
Who’s The Boss vs. The Family
Let’s get one of the most obvious ones out of the way first. The Civil War between Ben Bateman and Andrew Ghai has been ongoing since Ghai tackled his former teammate through a table at Spectacular. Ghai now has a faction of his own to go up against Who’s The Boss in the form of The Family: Drew McWeeny and manager Robert Meyer Burnett. While the enmity between Ghai and Bateman is obviously the driving force of this war, let’s not forget that Burnett has his own score to settle with Tom Dagnino, who threw him out of the Lion’s Den at Spectacular II after deeming him surplus to requirements.
I get the feeling that Bateman and Ghai going toe-to-toe in Houston is only going to take this war to a new level.
Who’s The Boss vs. The Odd Couple
While I include all of The Odd Couple in this section, Sneider and Andreyko don’t appear to have too much enmity with Who’s The Boss here – despite Sneider’s history with Dagnino – but they are willing to back up Roxy Striar. Roxy and Bateman have a history and the live match in Chicago showed that this was too much for her to ignore as she struck her former flame in what has become known as “The Slap Heard ‘Round the World”. Whether you think it was fair or not, Roxy has completed her penance (thanks to Sneider beating Reilly), but she has still refused to apologise for her act and on a recent edition of Inside Schmoedown, she made it clear that she would do nothing different if given the chance to turn back time. On both Inside Schmoedown and Collider Live, she has made it clear that she was very much against Bateman, calling herself a “Ghai Girl” but also fired shots at the rest of his team: Tom Dagnino and even Mark Reilly, going as far as to call the former Singles Champion a sheep.
Don’t expect Who’s The Boss to take these insults lying down. As for Andreyko, who found himself reinvigorated in the league after leaving the Lion’s Den and turning face with the Fyffe Squad, how will he react if his new manager continues to walk down a darker path?
The Odd Couple vs. KOrruption
It’s safe to say that the members of KOrruption probably aren’t on Roxy’s friends list either, as let’s not forget she used to be Mike Kalinowski’s manager before he walked away from The League and brought KOrruption into the Schmoedown, something that remains a bone of contention between them. More recently, Roxy has also accused KOrruption manager Grace Hancock of some underhand tactics which led to Roxy missing her team’s matches, although fans of Collider Live may be inclined to believe that Grace is innocent and that Roxy just ignored her sat nav again.
With Sneider and Andreyko also being former members of The Lion’s Den, they have history with Grace and know just how sly “The Lioness” can be and will also be quick to back Roxy up if this feud continues.
KOrruption vs. Founding Fathers
This is an interesting one, as it’s not clear quite how far this rivalry currently stretches. John Rocha and Mike Kalinowski clearly have great respect for each other – it was Mike who got rid of the 3-match stipulation that set The Outlaw on his way to winning the title off Bibbiani – but it’s not yet clear how this has been affected by the agonising Sudden Death loss that knocked the Founding Fathers out of the Anarchy tournament. Kalinowski’s teammate Chance Ellison, however, does not have the respect of “The Outlaw” and it has become clear that the Founding Fathers want a rematch with KOrruption to knock Chance down a peg or two and help them push for a title shot.
While this rivalry could be limited to just the two teams, don’t be surprised if more of the faction get involved, especially Grace Hancock, who as a former manager of the Lion’s Den has plenty of history against Rocha.
KOrruption vs. Trivia Dungeon
KOrruption really haven’t been looking to make friends recently. Mike Kalinowski is without a doubt one of the elite Innergeekdom competitors, but with the rise of Kaiser and his new competitor Kevin Smets, it has been clear for a while that the 2 titans of Innergeekdom trivia have been on a collision course for the chance to take on Rachel Cushing in San Diego.
While this may be relatively tame, Kaiser has recently taken on 2 more competitors in the form of unlikely teammates Paul Oyama and Eric Zipper. Zipper has had a bone to pick with Kalinowski ever since “The Killer” arranged for him to face Rachel Cushing in the second round of last year’s Innergeekdom tournament (which saw Cushing win by TKO) and has not enjoyed Kalinowski’s nickname for him of “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah”. More recently, Zipper’s frustrations spread to the whole faction as a quiet word in his ear from Grace made him think that abandoning his World’s Finest teammate Winston Marshall would lead to him replacing Mike as leader of the faction, only to find himself friendless and embarrassed when he found it that it was all a lie. Meanwhile, Paul Oyama has his eyes set on a match with Chance Ellison in an effort to prove that “The Cobra” is nothing special despite having been the first competitor promoted from the fan leagues.
With so many big personalities in these factions, expect fireworks at some point!
Time Machine vs. KOrruption
How many times is Kalinowski going to steal people away from Jay Washington? Spectacular II saw The Missfits come to an end as Brianne Chandler drove off into the sun with “The Killer” and now this season he’s stolen away Stacy Howard from the Viper Squad too become a part of KOrruption! Add in his verbal sparring online with Jeannine and there are plenty of reasons why Time Machine will want to take him down.
Stacy’s defection clearly hit a nerve for Jay and Jeannine. They understandably felt betrayed, whereas Stacy didn’t feel that she was getting the support she deserved, so Jeannine’s TKO victory over her last month will make her keen to get one over on her former stablemates.
Emma Fyffe vs. Samm Levine
The final ongoing feud in the league does not involve any factions but could end up having one of the biggest impacts.
Emma Fyffe has thrown herself into her role as Commissioner of the Innergeekdom and Teams Divisions and has clearly been annoyed with the former Double Champion’s much laxer attitude to running the Singles Division. After being given a kick up the ass by Fyffe, Levine found himself taking a more active role and whether it was down to taking an easy option or wanting some form of revenge, he scheduled his fellow Commissioner into a match with Chance Ellison, leading to her being TKO’d. Fyffe’s response to this has now been to suddenly throw Ellison into the Innergeekdom Division.
What will Samm’s next act of “Commissionin’” be and how will Fyffe react to that? Will she be looking for a way to force Samm to compete in Innergeekdom considering he is officially retired from Singles and Teams? Most importantly, how many competitors will get caught in the crossfire during the battle of the Commissioners? Only time will tell.
Have your say: Which is your favourite feud currently going in the league? And who do you think will be involved in the next one?
Eyes on the Ball 