Deep within the bowels of the Globe Theatre in Los Angeles, California, away from the anticipatory buzz of fans, competitors, and commentators, Brad Gilmore and Frank Janisch stood in front of a camera, their finest sartorial sensibilities on full display.
Behind them stretched a worn concrete staircase, the ancient white walls cracked and cragged.
Above, a blended red and yellow light filtered down, reminiscent of the faded neon so prevalent in washed out Las Vegas nightclubs.
An unusual setting to record the 2021 pre-show for the Movie Trivia Schmoedown’s flashiest event of the year—the Schmoedown Spectacular.
But there was nothing unusual about Gilmore and Janisch. The duo cracked their trademark smiles, Gilmore’s sanguine voice commanded the flow of conversation, and Janisch’s unbridled enthusiasm for the subject at hand dripped from every statistic and historical reference he presented.
If the backdrop hadn’t been so starkly unfamiliar (and if they hadn’t been physically standing within a foot of one another), it would’ve been impossible to tell the difference between the show they were recording and an episode of the Schmoedown Rundown, the league’s flagship online after-show the two co-host on a weekly basis.
As if to illustrate the point, a natural tangent occurred less than a minute into taping. After Gilmore made his opening introductions, Janisch noted that their filming location could’ve been lifted directly from Michael Bay’s The Rock, and that he half-expected Sean Connery, one of the stars of the movie, to burst through the door at any second.
Without missing a beat, Gilmore playfully responded: “That would be great … because he’s not alive anymore.”
Turning to look directly into the camera, Janisch stared into it with a knowing semi-smirk, shaking his head in a sardonic message to those watching at home: Do you see what I have to deal with? Can you believe this guy’s jokes?
And then, just like that (and after Gilmore made amends for poking fun at Connery), the pair vaulted themselves back on topic, transitioning easily into the meat of the program.
It had been so subtle. But for Gilmore and Janisch, that moment was everything.
It was the type of moment that, locked into the present, neither wanted to let go of, both as it pertained to the show and the relationship that fuels it. And it was the type of moment, if either dared gaze into the future, they hope to experience over and over, one that puts any lingering anxieties to rest and reaffirms the desire to push ever onward, no matter what may come.
“Until the wheels fall off,” Janisch says, his voice unwavering in its conviction, as if there’s never been anything he’s felt more confident about.
Janisch had no idea what he was getting into.
A paragon of the Schmoedown’s niche yet hyper-dedicated fanbase, Janisch often took to the show’s official Facebook group (then called Schmoeville) in the early days of its run, posting statistics he’d tracked and curated to ignite discussion with his fellow diehards. His consistency and willingness to treat the Schmoedown as a true sport simultaneously helped spark the notion of the game as legitimate mental competition while swiftly earning him a reputation as the league’s go-to numbers guy.
“You really cannot find someone as passionate about the Schmoedown, maybe minus myself, than Frank Janisch,” Kristian Harloff, co-creator and chairman of the Schmoedown, says.
It should come as no surprise, then, that when fellow fan and wrestling aficionado Aaron Turner reached out through the Schmoeville page towards the end of September 2016 asking if anyone would be interested in joining him on a podcast entirely devoted to the Schmoedown, Janisch leapt at the chance.
That isn’t to say, however, Janisch had designs on becoming a host or even a co-host. His limited podcasting experience and new relationship with the mic left him feeling most comfortable in a minute role, occasionally popping in to deliver a key statistic or two before fading into the background and leaning on Turner to bear the bulk of the show’s segments.
“I think I had actually, prior to the Rundown, I actually did like two or three little episodes that I called the Schmoedown Cooldown or something like that,” Janisch recalls, “and they were just basically like stat-heavy, info-graphic types of videos. They were awful.”
In addition to the unknown waters of broadcasting Janisch found himself wading into, the Rundown’s pilot episode was its own peculiar adventure. Turner had invited two more guests—Evan DeGraff and Matt Kearns—into the fold, both of whom were avid Schmoeville community members and significantly younger than their co-hosts.
At one point during the recording, DeGraff’s mother opened the door behind him, clearly visible in the camera frame. She proceeded to scold her son for avoiding his chores (“Dishes or something like that,” Janisch says), leaving the others to wait awkwardly for the moment to pass.
“That’s when I was like—and I’d never met Aaron before—but I was like, ‘Aaron, what the hell is—this is bizarre,’” Janisch says. “We were like late 20s talking to teenagers, not really realizing. So that was the first episode.”
More than 60 installments of the Rundown (now primarily hosted by Turner, Janisch, and a detail-oriented smooth-talker named Brian Davids) passed before the seismic shift that would ultimately dictate the direction of the show took place.
Holed up in a hotel room late one evening in 2017, Gilmore found himself perusing through YouTube, stopping when he came across an episode of Collider Movie Talk, a film news show that Harloff and numerous other Schmoedown personalities frequented.
“I watched it for a second and they said something about, ‘Hey, by the way, see this Schmoedown trivia battle featuring Dan Murrell and John Campea,’” Gilmore remembers. “And I was like, ‘Oh, I wonder what that is.’ And I saw they had the old WCW world title in one of the pictures. And I’m like, ‘I wonder what a Schmoedown is.’”
Upon further investigation, Gilmore discovered that a Schmoedown was, in fact, a harmonization of myriad things he had long adored, particularly wrestling and movie trivia. A fan of the former since he was five years old and having entered the industry himself as on-air talent for Reality of Wrestling in 2012, Gilmore understood the power and potential of the Schmoedown at once.
Ever the marketing mind, he sought out Harloff’s email and sent him an unsolicited pitch to have five-time WCW champion and Reality of Wrestling founder Booker T Huffman Jr. contribute to the show. It would be a match made in heaven, Gilmore thought, to cross-promote both the Schmoedown and Reality of Wrestling.
“Kristian emailed me back pretty quickly,” Gilmore says, “and just said, ‘Hey, if Booker T wants to be involved with the Schmoedown, he’s in.’”
Of course, Gilmore’s instinct proved to be spot on, and after sending Harloff a video of Booker reacting to John Rocha’s first Singles title win, the wrestling legend soon appeared in numerous Schmoedown videos with his own segment, delivering predictions on who he thought would win a given set of matches.
Shortly after the news broke of Booker’s involvement with the league, Gilmore received a direct message on Twitter from Turner, who knew he was connected to the situation and asked if he would be interested in appearing on the Rundown as a guest. Gilmore instantly agreed.
Oddly enough, Gilmore’s very first appearance on the Rundown was as a fill-in for Janisch, who wasn’t able to participate in the show that week. He entered the Schmoedown paradigm like a bolt of lightning, crackling and sizzling with a confident, boisterous aura that ran counter to the Rundown’s then-soft spoken, meticulous tone.
“I’ve never approached anything without two things: Energy and enthusiasm,” Gilmore says. “Because I feel like, if I’m the most hyper guy in the room, people will think I know what I’m talking about.”
Though growing as a new Schmoedown fan, Gilmore evidently didn’t have a deep relationship with the league and its history at that point in time. He knew that both Turner and Davids dwarfed him in that department, and that if he was going to make an impression, he’d need to take a different tact.
“I’m going, let me go in with some gusto,” Gilmore says. “Hopefully I can make a couple good points, hopefully I can entertain if nothing else. If nothing else, they’ll say, that guy didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but at least he was kinda entertaining and made me chuckle.
“That should be the quote to describe my career.”
His plan worked. Not long after the episode had been sent out into the ether, Harloff took to the Facebook group to ask fans what they thought of the Rundown’s ebullient guest. The response was immediate and positive, with people drawn to Gilmore’s magnetic personality.
Among the swaths of fans who had tuned in to Gilmore’s appearance, there was one in particular who had been patiently awaiting the episode’s release.
“I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this guy sounds really professional, a little bit older,’” Janisch says. “He sounded like a much more mature adult. I was like, ‘All right.’ I had never seen his face or anything before, so I had no idea of anything about him, except that he worked with Booker T. And that he came from the wrestling world.”
Despite the overwhelming reaction, Gilmore didn’t necessarily expect to do the show again. It had been an impromptu spot—he hadn’t even had a professional setup to record from. Instead, he’d jammed his Beats headphones into an Amazon Fire tablet and paced around his house incessantly, preferring to be mobile while he spoke. Once the recording finished and he’d hung up, he shrugged and thought, That’s probably the end of that.
But of course it wasn’t, and when Gilmore inevitably found himself tapped for an encore performance, the panel consisted of four people rather than three. For the first time, Gilmore and Janisch shared the Rundown stage, though neither thought too much of it.
For Janisch, it was the experience of encountering Gilmore’s unbridled exuberance that coloured his initial impression of the Houston native. He saw what everyone else did—the professionalism, the energy, the easygoing smile. Yet at the same time, he saw opportunity not only for the show’s growth, but his own.
Immediately, Janisch knew Gilmore was a personality he could lean on, feed and play off of, an avenue that he hadn’t felt was possible with the Rundown’s previously demure tone. The notion of expanding himself as an entertainer was highly attractive for someone who had once taken an improv course at Second City in his hometown Chicago.
“You learn about all the energy and feeding off people,” Janisch says. “With that limited background I had with improv at the time, I was like, ‘Oh, I can use this stuff with Brad and feed off him.’”
While Janisch was enraptured in Gilmore’s spirited nature, the latter’s primary takeaway from his future counterpart boiled down to a simple fact.
“I could 1,000 percent tell he was from Chicago,” Gilmore grins. “There was, like, no mistaking that. His accent is there.”
At the same time as zeroing in on Janisch’s voice, Gilmore also recognized something else—a yin to his yang. A compatible temperament to his rambunctious style, someone who was laid back and amiable, willing to take anything in stride. A personality who was only beginning to find comfort in expressing himself.
Then, towards the close of 2017, Turner announced he was leaving the Rundown due to personal reasons. Harloff, who by then was also very much invested in the show’s success, gave Gilmore’s phone a ring and asked if he would like to become a permanent host.
Surprised but certainly not disappointed, Gilmore agreed, and he, Janisch and Davids carried on with the podcast for about a month. After that point, Davids made his own somewhat tumultuous exit, and suddenly it was Gilmore and Janisch shoulder-to-shoulder, facing the future.
“I had no qualms about anything,” Janisch says, “nothing like, ‘I don’t know about this.’ It was always like, ‘Okay, where are we gonna go from here. What’s the show gonna look like?’”
Yet, the fact remained: The Rundown had built an audience. Both Gilmore and Janisch understood that what Turner and Davids had shaped was working, but they also knew that, going forward, they would have to forge their own version of the show together—something that each of them was confident they could do successfully.
“Aaron was a different type of host,” Janisch says. “Kind of like a Southern speaking voice and quiet but just so knowledgeable, and you do wanna listen to what he has to say—he just comes across as very knowledgeable and you’re honed in on what he’s saying.
“But Brad—still very knowledgable as well—but he just had much more of a wrestling type of flair, energy to him as a performer. Aaron, I think, was just being a host. Brad, working with him, it dawned on me that it’s a performance as well as just giving your thoughts.”
And so, as Space City and Windy City aligned to become after-show comrades, they concurrently began the formation of a relationship (perhaps unbeknownst to them) that would not only prove the backbone of the Rundown’s foray into explosive prosperity, but that would extend beyond the invisible barriers of typical peer-to-peer interaction into true, full-fledged friendship.
“Frank takes this sports element and Brad has the wrestling element,” Harloff says, “and they complement each other very well in that aspect.
“They like each other. They’ll never tell you that in person but you can tell that they get along very well.”
Gilmore looked at his then-girlfriend (now fiancee), Farah, with pleading eyes and an apologetic smile. “Can we go? Can we please go?”
The couple were preparing to fly out to Los Angeles for vacation, and Gilmore had just received a phone call from Harloff, who’d heard about the sabbatical through the Rundown (Gilmore had mentioned it offhandedly). He suggested that, if the two were going to be visiting anyway, they come for a weekend Schmoedown taping.
Ever supportive of her partner’s ventures, Farah agreed. “Yeah, sure, we’ll go.”
And so, after adding two more party members along the way (Farah’s cousin and her boyfriend), Gilmore took the small group to the Saturday taping (which included the now infamous Teams match between Top 10 and Top That, with the latter giving the former Westerns), the four of them rolling through the Burbank streets towards the studio. Throughout the ride, Gilmore texted with Janisch, who was already at the venue and waiting for them to arrive.
When they reached the studio, Gilmore saw an unmistakable figure standing on the curb. He’d seen the man’s face plenty of times through a computer screen, heard his voice through his headphones ad infinitum, but never once in person.
After about a year of hosting the Rundown together and communicating through purely digital means, Gilmore and Janisch met in March 2018—properly—for the first time.
“He was wearing a red t-shirt, I remember that,” Gilmore says. “And I remember pulling up next to him and it was like, ‘Oh hey, it’s you. We know each other, right?’”
Whatever first-meeting awkwardness there was (an inescapable sensation no matter how many digital encounters had come prior), it didn’t last long, and soon the two were shaking hands, laughing and hugging. The experience was as easy as either could’ve hoped, the conversations just as if not more enjoyable than the ones they’d had before and after Rundown episodes.
“It was a surreal experience to meet him in person,” Janisch says. “I had no idea how tall he was. He’s like 6’3” or something like that. He’s definitely almost a foot taller than me.”
Of course, the seamless transition from digital to reality was aided tremendously by the preexisting bond that Gilmore and Janisch had constructed both on air and off of it. Indeed, the genesis of what would ultimately become many in-person meetings was, in itself, simply another building block upon an already foundational chemistry.
And though that chemistry was swift to grow, there was still a feel-it-out period early on in which the duo had to learn one another’s proclivities and quirks, and how they could best interact with one another to achieve a scorching level of synergy.
Janisch, for example, had been prepared for Gilmore’s rowdy style, but he wasn’t always able to discern whether the seasoned professional was sincere in the often outlandish takes he would spout, or if he was just trying to get a rise out of his co-host and the audience. In one case, during a conversation about the Schmoedown Collision II, Gilmore boldly proclaimed that Andrew Ghai (who infamously defeated Dan Murrell at the event) should be given a shot at the Singles title.
“I remember being like, ‘You’re an idiot, what’s wrong with you,’” Janisch says. “But, at the same time, I also felt like, in the moment, he was just doing this for the sake of entertainment and the show and that’s great. And yet, at the same time, I’m like, ‘Does he really think that?’ But then I’m also like, ‘He’s done this enough that it could be the bit part he does for the show.’”
At one point, following an episode, Gilmore felt compelled to check in with Janisch and clarify his on-air shenanigans. He wanted to make sure his partner understood what he was going for.
“I think he said something like, ‘You know I was just joking around there with you, right? Just twisting the needle a bit,’” Janisch says. “And I had to be like, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it, I get it.’”
Gilmore, hailing from the world of radio, knew exactly what he was doing. Not only was he stirring up controversy in an effort to create a more engaging product (in fact, his well-known BOAT nickname—Best Of All-Time—comes from a rant in which he declares himself the top host ever), he was also providing Janisch with opportunities to increasingly come into his own and develop as a broadcaster.
Perpetually hyper-conscious of who he’s sharing the mic with, Gilmore is constantly searching for ways to accentuate the positives and hide the negatives of his on-air teammate, a skill he’s refined over the years. If he can set his partner up for a talking point, he will. If he can drop a reference to something they like to garner a reaction, he will.
“I had a sense of that with Frank,” Gilmore says, “and I think it really only took us a couple episodes to where Frank realized, ‘Okay, this guy’s going like 150 miles per hour, so I gotta speed up a little bit and bring up my energy, and also showcase who I am.’ Because I think that if Frank just talked about the stats, Frank Janisch wouldn’t be around today.”
And while Gilmore judiciously watered the seed of Janisch’s progressively expressive personality, the latter reciprocated by steadying the show as its prototypical straight man and acting as a failsafe for any and all historical and statistical information.
Should his co-host mistakenly name a team that wasn’t in a match from three years earlier, Janisch would find a way to politely correct him that didn’t cause any graceless breaks in the flow of conversation. Should the atmosphere of the show be devolving too far into something unrecognizable, Janisch would deftly reel it back in with a relevant reference.
“Without Frank, that show’s off the rails,” Gilmore says. “It would just be me talking nonsensically for an hour. He keeps it going, he makes the great points. Frank is the heart and soul and brain of the Rundown and I drink too many Red Bulls and try not to stutter. That’s how I view it.”
As much time went into generating a rhythm on-air, just as much occurred behind the scenes. Before and after shows, Gilmore and Janisch would hang out and talk (sometimes for as long as an hour and a half) about numerous subjects, not just the Schmoedown. They’d chat about movies or sports or music, and have general life discussions that, by their very nature, morphed a working relationship into a genuine friendship.
“It helps because we’re in different rooms, different states, different time zones,” Janisch says. “You’ve gotta build that chemistry somehow. And through all that we just found things that we have in common, that we like, that we share, and that bleeds into the show.”
Those personal conversations spent on random nights in the middle of the week combined with what they were doing on-air made for a connection that others could see just as easily as they could. In their appearances together since first meeting on that curb in Burbank, the ambiance about them has been tangible.
“I think Brad and Frank had legit formed a real friendship,” Harloff says. “Even though they’ll be goofy and silly and tell you they don’t like to talk to each other at all, when you see them at a Schmoedown event or the cameras aren’t on, they’re goofing around, they’re talking. When you do a show with somebody for that long in that rhythm, you have a camaraderie with them, you have a bond with them, and these two certainly have that for sure.”
Through their shared experiences with one another, the twosome have also had their individual appreciations of the Schmoedown swell to greater heights than ever before. Sure, the game was something that both of them loved prior to partaking in so much of it together, but the added factor of engaging with it via their particular place in the community has understandably altered their perception of it.
Not only that, but it’s provided them further opportunities for growth beyond recording the Rundown.
As the creator of the league, Harloff has watched their evolution vigilantly, hyper-aware of each’s individual maturation even as it occurs within the larger blooming of their personas as the Rundown Boyz. For both of them, Harloff says there are key moments that have helped shape this long-term process.
Janisch’s moment occurred at the 2020 Schmoedown Draft. He had done the work beforehand as any knowledgeable host would, and had compiled a list of who he thought would be picked and where they’d be going. But, of course, there were plenty of surprises that night, and Janisch’s reactions to them brought out the best in him as both a fan and a broadcaster, someone who could now express himself adroitly on the mic at the same time as share the audience’s level of excitement.
“If you go back and watch it,” Harloff says, “even the intensity in his voice like when Robert Parker was drafted so early and he screams, ‘Robert Parker!’ He was legit so hyped up, he wasn’t overselling it, he was just really excited for each person.
“He was so excited because this is Frankie’s sport.”
Gilmore’s moment, on the other hand, was perhaps more subtle. At the league’s 2020 live event in Atlanta, Georgia, Harloff had him warm up the crowd pre-show. It wasn’t something that Gilmore was unused to in his line of work, but he hadn’t done it many times for the Schmoedown itself. And as that pre-show rumbled on and Gilmore amped up the audience further and further, his own level of investment seemed to rise to a new degree in recognition of the swell of exhilaration in the room.
“The look on his face when he came off the stage in Atlanta … It looked like he was at Wrestlemania,” Harloff says. “I don’t think he realized at that level what the Schmoedown could do to an audience.”
Incredibly, throughout all of these instances of chemistry building (even when navigating the DNA of the show early on), Gilmore and Janisch have managed to avoid any serious moments of tension, let alone actual arguments. At times, one of them will be slow to answer a text message or wrap up an on-air segment too quickly, but that never leads to anything more than a moment’s bother.
There is a strong mutual appreciation for where each of them stand in the larger Schmoedown landscape, and what their roles are meant to entail. That formidable ability to push any inkling of ego aside for the sake of entertainment has evidently not only been good for business, but has burnished the ease of their partnership.
“In that way it’s very unlike a relationship,” Gilmore says. “There’s literally never a spat or a disagreement about anything. It’s not like, Frank, you didn’t take the damn trash out again? It’s always easy.”
In fact, the most upset the two have ever gotten with one another was a fabricated incident—there was a week early on together in which Gilmore was going to miss an episode of the Rundown, and so they took advantage of the situation, pretending to get into a spat on-air to ruffle their audience’s feathers.
What ultimately came of that specific affair wasn’t much, and the two haven’t done anything too similar since. However, Gilmore did take that opportunity to have Booker T record a promo in which the former champ called out Janisch as if he were partaking in a wrestling match. Eventually, the clip (which Janisch still holds dear) was used to lead up to one of the Rundown’s Schmoedown trivia matches, an event that saw Gilmore and Janisch play against one another, as well as some former hosts and guests.
“I remember Brad sending me this video of Booker T and I was like, ‘This is so fucking cool,’” Janisch says. “That was one of the cool things Brad did. I was like, ‘Damn, that’s pretty cool.’”
Less than 24 hours before the Schmoedown held its first Brooklyn live event in 2019, Harloff approached Gilmore and Janisch, asking them if they would host a 10-minute pre-show. The duo agreed.
At the call time the following day, Harloff again approached the Rundown Boyz, telling them that the pre-show would need to be 15-20 minutes rather than 10. Again, they agreed.
After an hour, Harloff returned with the message that Gilmore and Janisch would have to warm up the crowd for 30 minutes. Yet again, they agreed.
Then, 30 minutes before showtime, Harloff appeared in front of the twosome one last time, asking them if they thought they could handle doing an hour-long pre-show. With the utmost confidence, the pair, of course, agreed.
“The show starts and I walk out there and I bring out Frank and we improvise the whole hour on stage in front of a rabid, sold out house in Brooklyn, New York,” Gilmore recalls. “Everything you saw on camera was one take. One take. No mess ups. Just go with it, we’re running through this quickly. That was pretty awesome.”
Taking on a task as daunting as hosting an entire pre-show while the timeframe for said show shifts fluidly nearly right up until it actually begins is not a simple feat. It’s exactly the kind of obstacle that showcases the pliability of Gilmore and Janisch’s rapport.
Since that extemporaneous pre-show in Brooklyn, the duo’s bond has undergone significant refinement, to the point that they’re now able to show up several minutes before recording an episode, briefly discuss the topics at hand, and unflinchingly jump directly into the thick of it. They have reached a distinct synergistic echelon with each other, one only possible by relentlessly carving a unique path forward through time together.
“I’ve spent five years on the air together with Brad at this point, which is … holy shit,” Janisch says. “There’s just no discussion of how we’re going to do the show. It’s just, ‘Here’s what we’ve got to talk about, Brad. However, you wanna do it, let’s do it’. And we shoot it off the cuff and when we have a guest it’s like, ‘Oh, we’ll bring them in now or we’ll bring them in later.’”
This ineffable kinship is, on one hand, entirely tangible. There’s the way Gilmore understands the wrestling element of the Schmoedown and how that can be filtered in through the Rundown. There’s the passion and deep comprehension of the game from Janisch, brought to light through the lens of gritty sports analysis. These sorts of defining characteristics of their relationship are visible, describable.
But it’s the intangible, that It factor, that has transformed a friendship into something more closely resembling a brotherhood. A living pop culture encyclopaedia, Gilmore says the essence can be summed up by a line in the film, Wedding Crashers, when Owen Wilson’s character is talking with Rachel McAdams’.
True love is the soul’s recognition of its counterpoint in another.
“That’s kinda what It is,” Gilmore says. “You find somebody who knows how to—when you zig, they know when to zag without talking about it, without communicating it. I don’t ever say, ‘Frank, I’m gonna say this crazy thing today, get ready.’ He has no earthly idea what I’m gonna say, I have no earthly idea what he’s going to say. Ever. Ever! But I know when I throw [something] out he’s gonna pick it up and run with it, and vice versa.
“That’s trust, that’s a bond, that’s chemistry—that’s a soul’s recognition of its counterpoint.”
The Schmoedown is no stranger to fabricating relationships, whether they be platonic like Gilmore and Janisch’s, or romantic. Some have even led to marriages. It’s a league and community that has placed an emphasis on bringing people together, and it’s one of the things Harloff is most proud of.
“A lot of people met through Schmoedown, Schmoes Know, and become lifelong friends,” the chairman says. “It means a lot. It means we have surrounded ourselves with good people and good people alike that get along, understand each other, and respect each other.”
In a space that’s ever-lilting, with new shows popping up on a daily basis and others vanishing into the void of the internet doldrums, longevity is a rarity. At so many points, the Rundown could’ve been dismembered—its numbers could’ve fallen off, Harloff could’ve wanted a programming change, one of its stars could’ve left the show. And yet, onward it marches, with Gilmore and Janisch’s exceptional bond at the forefront, having won them the hearts of an audience that has only grown with them over the past five years.
“We’re like Schmoedown Myth Busters,” Gilmore says. “You know how Myth Busters made science the most interesting thing in the world? At least, when I was a kid, I saw them try to lift a boat out of the water with ping pong balls and I thought, ‘This is a show for me.’ And I think that’s what we try to do with the Rundown. It’s difficult to make a show run that long and be that interesting and keep people wanting to come back.”
The Rundown has not yet reached its potential.
Within the confines of the format it currently exists in, however, Janisch believes it has reached its peak. With only the twosome having operated the show for so long (as well as having to deal with the debilitating effects of COVID-19), expanding to bigger and better horizons has been difficult. Janisch has played the role of editor (ever since beloved former editor Chris Clark departed the show) in addition to host, and has made it a point of emphasis to improve the presentation however he can. Most recently, that’s been by adding a live ticker to the bottom of episodes, offering fans statistics and other facts about the conversation at hand.
There have already been some changes heading into the Schmoedown’s ninth season, aptly titled, “Reboot.” Janisch has appeared in some of the preseason videos the league’s YouTube channel has released (confirming that the Rundown is looking to add more in-person elements immediately), episodes are being pre-taped like in the days of old, and on the after-show’s 285th episode, Gilmore and Janisch welcomed fan favourite Steph Sabraw (a staple host on multiple SEN properties) into the mix as a third personality.
As the ticker element suggests, Janisch’s vision for the future of the Rundown goes beyond simply adding bells and whistles to a podcast-style show. He’s itching to get away from the likes of Skype and Streamyards and into a sports-studio setting that allows for an endless stream of possibilities.
“I want to see it reach its full potential, not that I’m not proud of it or anything like that,” Janisch says. “If there are five phases, we’re in like phase three and I need to see it all the way through—which is where we do it in studio, and do all that stuff and it gets a little more maybe Sports Nation meets Around the Horn meets Sportscenter type of deal.”
Harloff, like Janisch, is confident that the Rundown has a greater destiny in the grand scheme of the Schmoedown’s future. As the league’s definitive after-show and with the two personalities so easily recognizable at this stage, he wants them hyping up matches the night before they air, wants them hosting press conferences.
“I don’t think the Schmoedown has come close to its peak, and I don’t think the Rundown has hit its peak’ Harloff says. “It gets better and better, Frank and Brad get better and better, but there’s a lot more to do.”
Imagining the Rundown now without Gilmore or Janisch feels unfathomable—they have become so synonymous with the title that picturing a version of the show without one or the other is nigh impossible. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t thought about it, and what it would mean if such a seismic shift (as monstrous as the one that occurred when they were first brought together) rattled the core of what has become a highly successful endeavour.
For Gilmore, the idea triggers one reaction, and one reaction only.
“If Frank’s out, I’m out,” Gilmore says, without hesitation. “I can’t see it working with anybody else. Like, I could see, maybe we add somebody for flavour, but if Frank’s not there, I have no interest. I have zero interest.”
Janisch, on the other hand, has a tougher time with the notion of letting go. Not that he wouldn’t prefer to do the show specifically with Gilmore, but that he feels a sense of ownership over the Rundown, as though it’s become a part of him. Not only is it the longest relationship he’s ever had, it’s his thing.
“If [Gilmore] can’t be a part of the show on a permanent basis, that would suck,” Janisch says. “I would still do the show because I have to. Well, it’s not that I have to do it, it’s that I want to do it, and I just don’t think anybody else could do a better job than what me and Brad do. So, if I have to be the last one, then I’ll be the last one. Last one standing.”
But Gilmore doesn’t bear any ill will towards Janisch’s desire to stick with the show as long as possible, even if it doesn’t include him. As with all legitimately healthy relationships, he supports his partner wholeheartedly, understanding better than perhaps anyone else what the Rundown means to Janisch on both a professional and personal level.
“I mean, he’s been there since the organic roots of the show. It wouldn’t even bother me,” Gilmore says. “I’d almost be bothered if he didn’t go on, to be honest.”
There is no denying it—as it exists right now, the Rundown moves on the strength of Gilmore and Janisch’s ardent bond. Yes, Gilmore emanates professionalism with his seamless delivery, his radio-ready elocution, his picturesque hair. And yes, Janisch has gone from a mic-shy broadcast newbie to the voice of the Schmoedown community. Those solo feats are impressive and to be commended, but what the two are together makes the Rundown so much greater than it otherwise should be.
“[Janisch is] somebody who, within a space of inflated personalities, puffery, and in an egodriven world, I know is a true, genuine individual and person,” Gilmore says. “I’d like to think, if I was in a pinch and really needed some guidance, counselling, advisor help, that I could pick up the phone and call Frank Janisch and he’d be there for me. And I hope that he would know that it’s vice versa.”
“I think you just have to witness all of it to really understand,” Janisch adds. “It is very much a brotherly type of relationship.”
The Schmoedown Rundown—this Schmoedown Rundown—won’t be forever. There are too many variables to determine otherwise. But the ties Gilmore and Janisch have woven and continue to weave throughout their time together are eternal, unimpeachable.
And while the only show that matters may not last forever, its dynamite duo are determined to forge onwards, buoyed by a relationship primed for the future.
No matter what may come.
“I have always been one,” Gilmore says, his voice unwavering in its conviction, as if there’s never been anything he’s felt more confident about, “to go until the wheels fall off.”
