YMMV / Movie Trivia Schmoedown

• Award Snub: The most common occurrence of this involves entrance awards, as controversy has surrounded them for the past three years.
  • In 2017, many felt that 6 Degrees, who were twice-nominated that year for Best Teams Entrance, lost to Wolves of Steel for their It entrance as a result of vote-splitting between their two nominated entrances, something Clarke Wolfe humbly acknowledged in her and Mark Reilly's acceptance speech.
  • In 2018, something similar occurred when William Bibbiani, twice-nominated in Best Singles Entrance, lost to Andrew Ghai for his surprise Free-4-All entrance. It was widely speculated that Bibbs' loss was also due to vote-splitting, which led to a new precedent in which only one entrance per competitor or team could be nominated in each entrance category.
  • In 2019, Greg Alba appeared to be the favorite to win Best Singles Entrance (renamed Best Entrance by an Individual) for his A Star Is Born entrance at the Free-4-All that year, but John Rocha ended up winning for his surprise sick entrance at Spectacular IV. Numerous fans thought that Rocha's win was a case of Award Category Fraud, as his entrance was for a Teams match, even though he technically walked out by himself. There were others who liked the entrance but argued that it would've been more appropriate for it to have been exclusively nominated for Moment of the Year, which it was also nominated for. Alba's bitterness regarding this is documented below as a CMOF.
• Awesome Ego: Team Action consisted of two of the most obnoxious, self-important heels in the show's history. They also developed arguably one of, if not the, most devoted fan following of any competitors in the league.
• Awesome Music: Much of the original music by David B. qualifies, but a special mention goes to Korruption's theme, especially when it was played live during Kalinowski's entrance at Spectacular IV.
• Cargo Ship: Brendan Meyer and the buzzer
• Creepy Awesome: The Loony Bin is one of the show's strangest teams to ever grace (?) viewers' screens, even rendering Jay Washington speechless, which Harloff even lampshades. They also won Upset of the Year for Season 6 and Tom was a first-round draft pick.
• Crowning Moment of Funny:
  • Between Andrew Ghai's antics and the exasperated commentary by Harloff and Ellis, the entirety of Ghai vs Murrell could count as this. What makes the below quote doubly count as a CMOF and Crowning Moment of Awesome is that Ghai's prediction actually comes true to the shock of the audience.
  [During the sixth question of the first round]
  Ghai: "I know the answer, Dan."
  Murrell: [disinterested] "Good for you."
  Ghai: "I know it. I'm gonna tie you right now, 'cause you're gonna miss it. I can feel it in my balls."
  • Most of what the Wildberries (and Josh Macuga for that matter) does qualifies, but the example that takes the cake is when they attempt to conduct themselves in a calmer manner in their match against the Founding Fathers, renaming themselves the Mildberries. However, after going into the third round, they can no longer contain their energy and revert back to the Wildberries. Then, out of nowhere, Macuga shoves Murrell's then-Singles belt onto the floor out of frustration. After Murrell demands that he picks it up, Macuga does so...only to start flossing with it between his legs. Macuga gets briefly suspended from the league for his actions.
  • During the Who's the Boss vs Crimson Fury match, the flicker on the wheel came off after Stacy Howard spun it (from the pegs) and Crimson Fury had to pick their round two category out of a pail. Given the poor reception this wheel faced, fans rejoiced.
  • The Loony Bin's mere existence counts, but a standout moment took place during their match against Time Machine after Erwin is the only one to miss a round one Animated question and tries to use the defense that he doesn't have kids:
  VideoDrew: "None of us have kids."
  Tom: "Not anymore."
  • As vengeance against John Rocha for winning Singles Entrance of the Year for 2019 over him, Greg Alba wore a V For Vendetta mask and a cowboy hat, old signatures of Rocha's, during the Reel Rejects' match against the Cuckoo's Mess to mock him while John Humphrey wore a Jigsaw mask. Enraged, Rocha demanded Alba take the mask off and confiscated it from him, only for John Humphrey to reveal he was wearing his own V for Vendetta mask under his Jigsaw mask and handed it to Alba to wear for the match, also revealing that he was wearing another Jigsaw mask under that mask.
  • Lon Harris has always been a fan favorite for his character work, but his portrayal of his new "Delinquent" persona that he officially debuted in Final Exam vs The Experiment practically makes the entire match an example, especially when Winston Marshall has to lure him around with a flask. Eliot Dewberry's obvious discomfort with being paired with Marc Edward Heuck and being managed by Shannon Barney contributes to the match's humor.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Many fans, particularly the Action Army, viewed Ghai sympathetically after Bateman resolved to stay partnered with Reilly, which led to Team Action splitting up for good. This is in spite of the fact that, or even because, Ghai is widely considered one of the show's biggest heels and isn't above physically assaulting other competitors when they anger him.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: There are some fans whose main draw to the show is the storyline aspect and the trivia is secondary to them.
  • Play the Game, Skip the Story: In contrast, there are also some fans who watch for the trivia and are less interested in the storylines.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In Sneider's postgame interview after beating Rocha, a future version of Bibbs comes with news of a Bad Future, part of which includes the reformation of the Horsemen. One month after this match aired, the second iteration of the Horsemen officially debuted at the end of the second 2018 Live Event.
  • All the way back at the end of Season 3 in 2016 at the inaugural Schmoedown Spectacular, Dan Murrell accepted Finstock's offer to join the Lion's Den, only to quickly bow out of the faction after they failed to show up to support him in his title match against John Rocha. Additionally, during the moment in which Murrell accepted Finstock's offer, Rocha crashed the interview to insult Finstock and shove him out of the way before launching into a tirade towards Murrell. Cut to two years later midway through Season 6 and Finstock has officially become both Murrell and Rocha's manager after Finstock and Ben Bateman were accepted into the Five Horsemen at the Houston event.
  • At the end of the second live event in Los Angeles in 2018, Team Action took to the stage where Ghai reiterated his alleged "killing" of Murrell, complete with Bateman coming out dressed like him and the two of them mocking him and his legacy. This led up to the reveal of the new iteration of the Horsemen that included Murrell among their ranks, which successfully silenced the two. Just one year later, Bateman would be knocking Ghai down a peg after defeating him in a live event himself and becoming part of the third iteration of the Horsemen.
• I Knew It!: Many fans theorized that Clarke Wolfe would become Rachel Cushing's new partner at the end of Season 4 after the Wolves of Steel split up due to Mark Reilly's retirement and Ken Napzok betrayed Cushing to join the Lions Den.
• Jerkass Woobie: Andrew Ghai is arguably the greatest heel in Schmoedown history, but it was hard not to pity him somewhat upon the Family's loss to Shazam in the 2019 Teams Tournament finals where he initially retired after feeling like he failed Drew McWeeny by not getting him the belt he promised him.
• Memetic Mutation: "All the belts, all the records!"
  • "Japeto"
  • "Spin from the wheel, not the pegs!"
  • "Where's the belts?!"
  • In addition to the first listed, Rocha has received the brunt of these, including, but not limited to:
    • Bespin
    • Jane Fonda
    • Being a fourth round pick
• Moral Event Horizon: Ken Napzok betraying Rachel Cushing to join the Lion's Den after failing to show up to their match against Blofeld's Cat, forcing her to face them two-on-one. The disheartened look on Cushing's face further solidified this moment as Napzok's MEH, as he mocked her for trying to bring him back to the light.
  • Shannon Barney purposely drafted Eliot Dewberry at the inaugural draft just to ensure that the Wildberries would be split up. Many fans already consider her the front-runner for Heel of the Year, and this was before a single match had even been played that season.
  • In-Universe, Dagnino secretly planning on trading Sneider after the Patriots lost the belts was seen as this by Sneider and Napzok, which caused the Lion's Den to implode and Sneider and Napzok going off to do their own things.
• Never Live It Down: All of the above Memetic Mutations for Rocha.
  • During Top 10 vs Top That, Top 10 spun Opponent's Choice during the second round of what was an extremely competitive match. Top That gave them Biopics, a well-known strength of Rocha's, which allowed Top 10 to edge them out in what was considered one of the best Teams matches of all time. To this day, people still scrutinize Top That for this move.
    • Slightly subverted as of Rogue 2 vs The Wicked where the Wicked spun Biopics during the second round and Vejvoda proceeded to blast through it, avenging himself in a sense from his prior mistake.
  • Sneider's KO loss against Bibbiani in a number one contender shot from 2018 was heavily looked down upon, as many felt that he wasn't even trying once he realized he couldn't win and was purposely trying to get knocked out in the second round. A few fans went as far as suggesting he be penalized for his poor performance.
  • Kalinowski and the Flash Gordon (1980) fiasco from his match against Sneider. But in fairness, it's widely agreed upon that the question was poorly worded and Kalinowski clearly knew the answer.
  • Time will tell if this will remain the case, but Bibbiani received a lot of flak in his three-way match against Murrell and Meyer where he challenged that Murrell's answer of "Sir Richard Attenborough" was incorrect and that Attenborough's proper title was "Lord." The challenge, which was declared heel-ish by numerous fans, was not granted and Bibbs was booed by the crowd for his troubles. As of his title match against Bateman, Murrell himself has yet to have forgotten about it, as he jokingly added the "Sir" and "Lord" titles to some of his answers in the Bateman match, which Bateman stated he'd allow him to get away with.
  • The Pride put up a great performance in their debut match against the Butcher Boys, but received a lot of flak for their heel personas. Goddard especially received ridicule for outright proclaiming that they're heels during the match to defend their antics to the point that Harloff joked about making a shirt out of it and Brad Gilmore felt compelled to give a lesson about the history of heels as portrayed in Wrestling and how they're supposed to act on an episode of the Schmoedown Rundown.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: Patriots vs Top 10 III, which ended up being the Patriots' final successful defense, may be the least popular match of all time with over a fifth of the votes on its YouTube upload being dislikes. Top 10 was down by only four points going into the betting round where Sneider spun Westerns, a strength of Rocha's. The Patriots got the question wrong while Top 10 knew it, but the Patriots challenged that their answer of "Jane Fonda" was written incomprehensibly on Rocha's board and shouldn't have counted. The ruling was that the entire round would be redone with a new wheel spin, which landed on Will Smith, and a new question, which the Patriots got right and Top 10 missed, creating a ten-point deficit that helped the Patriots knock out Top 10 in the speed round. Fans are torn on whether or not Top 10 deserved credit for their answer, whether they should've just had their points deducted for not writing the answer clearly enough, or whether the teams should've redone the round with a new Westerns question. However, the decision to have a re-spin is nearly universally loathed, as it seemed entirely unnecessary based on the actual controversy at hand.
  • The first Founding Fathers vs Korruption match will forever be remembered for the "O'Russell" controversy, which Harloff referred to as the biggest challenge the show has ever had. David O. Russell was the answer to the first and only Sudden Death question, which Murrell knew but remembered too late to write it on his board. This was prior to the rule that each competitor/team would have one repeat to use for the Sudden Death round and Founding Fathers had used all of theirs in the match proper. When called on to answer, Murrell verbalized the answer but conceded that he didn't write it down in time. Ellison wrote "David O'Russell" and Rocha and Kalinwoski wrote "David O. Russell." Murrell didn't receive credit, but everyone else did, which gave Korruption the win. There was confusion as to whether Murrell should have received credit since he answered first and couldn't have cheated off of anyone and/or if Ellison shouldn't have received credit for writing what was technically a different last name. The ruling was that Ellison's answer counted because it was phonetically correct and Murrell's didn't because it wasn't written down in time, regardless of him verbalizing it. The controversy led to a very tense postgame interview with the Founding Fathers.
  • The Family vs The Paddington Two was a solid match that originally ended with the Paddington Two prevailing, but Atchity believed that the Family's 5-pointer wasn't written properly and didn't want the Paddington Two's win to result from what he perceived to be a poorly-worded question. As a result, the Family received a new question that they knew and got the win. It's widely agreed upon that Atchity should not have challenged the question at all and left it for the Family to challenge if they wished to, even though it was honorable of him to do so. However, to this day, there is disagreement regarding whether or not the initial question itself was fair to ask and if the Family's replacement question was too easy, which has spurred debate over whether the Family was as good of a team as their record indicates.
  • Narrowly averted with Murrell vs Meyer vs Bibbiani, which had four challenges, but was otherwise a very entertaining and high-scoring match where each competitor only missed one question each and Murrell tied the points record for a three-round Singles match.
  • Who's the Boss vs the Odd Couple II saw Who's the Boss break the Teams points record with 37 points and was an all around fantastic match with the Odd Couple putting up an impressive 32 points. However, the most discussed aspect of the match revolves around a controversial challenge with the first question. The answer to the question was Idris Elba, which Bateman, Sneider, and Reilly all wrote and verbalized correctly. Andreyko, who answered last after giving a fun anecdote about the movie in question, wrote and verbalized "Idris Alba." He was initially judged as being correct before Bateman yelled for him not to erase his board and challenged that "Alba" was an entirely different name and shouldn't have counted. Unfortunately for him, the challenge was ruled in Andreyko's favor with the judges' reasoning being that it could be perceived as a simple misspelling and that they felt that he clearly knew who Idris Elba is. The ruling of this challenge is widely loathed, as many agree wholeheartedly with Bateman that "Alba" is an entirely different name than "Elba" and that Andreyko's mistake is particularly egregious considering that three different competitors answered before him with the actual correct answer, yet he still verbalized it incorrectly, which weakens the argument that he knew Elba's real name. People also take issue with Harloff's defense that challenges will always be ruled on a case-by-case basis regardless of past precedent, as there have been prior incidents where competitors were deemed incorrect because they misspelled a correct answer by one letter.
• Ron the Death Eater: As part of the Draco in Leather Pants example above, numerous fans turned on Bateman for staying partnered with Reilly instead of reuniting with Ghai to reform Team Action, calling him a traitor and bashing him for this decision even years later. This is in spite of Ghai giving Bateman his blessing to stay with Reilly and proclaiming that he's already found another partner, only to tackle him a minute later for his "betrayal."
• Spoiled by the Format: Zig Zagged. Matches that are on the shorter side (under 40 minutes) or longer side (over an hour) can sometimes indicate to viewers whether a match is a Curb-Stomp Battle or played out to the bitter end. However, the lengths are not always that indicative. A short episode could contain a very close match, but the match may have contained very little smack talk from the competitors or there were no cut scenes before or after. A long episode may have the inverse where it was a Curb-Stomp Battle, but the match dragged on because of smack talk, challenges, or some other interruptions, or there were cut scenes.
  • This is becoming increasingly averted, as Friday release matches are being premiered on YouTube as opposed to being uploaded normally, making it impossible for viewers watching during the premiere to know how long the episode will be until it ends.
  • This is downplayed with the streams of live events for viewers watching them live, though the typical ones that contain two matches generally hover around two hours.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Deliberately invoked with heels, particularly Finstock, the Patriots, Team Action, and Kalinowski, who were all (understandably) hated in-universe, but beloved by the fans due to Evil Is Cool.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Andrew Dimalanta's entrance for his match against Laura Kelly looked incredible, doubly because he did all the effects himself, and was fully deserving of a Singles Entrance of the Year nomination.
• The Woobie: Rachel Cushing after Ken Napzok betrayed her to join the Lion's Den. Napzok was beginning to turn heel leading up to his Star Wars Championship match against Sam Witwer after feeling downtrodden due to having less success in Singles and Teams. Cushing attempted to brighten his spirits and proposed a Teams match against Blofeld's Cat, only for her to face them two-on-one after Napzok failed to show up. Napzok finally shows up after Cushing loses in a impressively close match, only to betray her in the moment to officially join the faction. Cushing won over a lot of support that day.
  • Iron Woobie: Cushing qualifies, as she picked herself up very quickly after Napzok's betrayal to join forces with Clarke Wolfe to form the Shirewolves and joining the Fyffe Club, going on a huge run to eventually winning both the Teams belts with Wolfe and the IG belt, becoming the second ever competitor to be double-belted.