Competitive Movie Trivia Helped Change My Life. No, I’m Not Joking.

Sometimes, it strikes me that I have “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” to thank for how my life is now, and that just makes me laugh. I hated that film when I first saw it in theaters on March 25, 2016, and I have never watched it in its entirety again. But that film is the catalyst that led to me finding where I belong in this world. I never imagined as I sat in my car after leaving the theater that day, thoroughly disappointed in what I’d seen, that it had just completely changed my life, but it had.

I did something while I sat in my car that day that I had never done before. I had the urge to find out what other people thought of the mess I had just watched, so I took my phone and searched for reviews. I wasn’t big on Twitter at the time, so I found the YouTube app and looked up reviews of the film. I didn’t even know if there would be any because I barely watched YouTube in those days.

There were several to choose from, but I settled on one from Collider. I’d never heard of Collider before; I’d never watched a video review of a movie either. But even though I should have been driving home, I sat there and watched all 47 minutes of the review instead. I was introduced to John Campea, Dennis Tzeng, Jon Schnepp, and Mark Ellis, the four men on the panel, as I had never heard of them before. And I found myself often agreeing with their opinions of what they’d watched, and hearing those thoughts that were similar to mine made me feel like I wasn’t alone. Their camaraderie with each other and the entire presentation of the video drew me in, and it made me seek out more Collider Video content after I got home.

I went down a rabbit hole of another Collider show, Collider Movie Talk, that lasted three days. I was hooked on Collider content.

Watching Collider content became part of my daily routine. Movie Talk, Heroes, Jedi Council, trailer reactions, movie reviews–it didn’t matter. Whatever the latest video they released was, I watched it. It didn’t matter if it was about something I’d seen or not, or if I was interested in it either. Discovering the rest of the Collider crew was a joy. They felt like a group of friends that I could visit for a while when I was having a bad day, and soon watching Collider daily became an integral part of my coping skills.

There was also something on the Collider YouTube channel called the Movie Trivia Schmoedown. Trivia had never really been something I’m into, and despite my sudden addiction to watching all of this content, I don’t really watch that many movies, so I didn’t check out the Schmoedown at first. I mean, I had no idea what a “Schmoedown” was, but movie trivia sounded like it would be absolutely boring to watch.

Boy, was I wrong.

Ellis and Kristian Harloff, who by this point I had learned had their own YouTube channel known as Schmoes Know, kept promoting the Schmoedown on Movie Talk or whatever else they were on. (The Schmoe part of the Schmoedown name then made sense.) I kept hearing about how the show was movie trivia mixed with professional wrestling, and I just could not picture what this show could be. How could you possibly combine movie trivia and professional wrestling? I was so confused.

So I decided I needed to find out how this Schmoedown thing worked. And because I’m a completionist, I went back to the first episode of the Schmoedown that had been posted, ironically, on March 25, 2016. The video was titled “Movie Trivia Schmoedown - John Campea Vs Dan Murrell” and I thought, “Well, at least I know who Campea is.”

I would very quickly learn who Dan Murrell is.

It started with Campea trash-talking Murrell, and then Murrell trash-talking Campea was intercut into a video package that got my attention. Harloff and Ellis, as the commentators on the match, drew me in even more, and then the match started. I didn’t know the format, I didn’t know the answer to any of the questions, and by the time the thirty-eight-minute video had finished, with Murrell as the victor in the match, I decided that I needed to watch more.

So I binge-watched all of the episodes that were available on Collider. (I discovered later on that there were earlier seasons on the Schmoes Know channel, but in a different format than the episodes on Collider.) The Schmoedown became something I looked forward to every week. The matches were intriguing, even though they made me feel completely stupid at times since I didn’t know any of the answers, and I could see the pro wrestling elements in the promos and video packages, the trash-talking of the competitors, and after the first “The Outlaw” John Rocha match I watched, I realized that they were playing characters and that the foundations were being laid for storylines.

But the thing that hooked me most of all was the drama. There was both the scripted variety in the storylines that surrounded the matches, and the unscripted kind that evolved naturally from the way the matches went. I started to develop favorite competitors, started to dislike other competitors, and got a better understanding of babyface characters and heel ones.

“Classy” Clarke Wolfe and her Decision to team up with Mark “Yodi” Reilly instead of JTE is the first big storyline that I remember watching, and I was hooked. That decision not only formed the Wolves of Steel, with Wolfe and Reilly, but also saw the formation of the Patriots, with JTE and Jeff Sneider, who would go on one of the most dominant runs in the Schmoedown ever.

By the end of 2016, my entire day was thrown off if I didn’t watch a Schmoedown match. The emotions these matches and storylines took me on was an emotional release that I needed. My life was at a very low point, and even though watching the Schmoedown for the next three years would help me, nothing was getting better.

I have schizoaffective disorder, and it’s pretty debilitating. (I won’t go into too much detail here, but let’s just say that it really sucks.) I couldn’t work, and because of that, I spent most of my time lying on my bed and watching Collider content, with the Schmoedown a big part of that. The same episode of Movie Talk three times in one day? If it calmed my anxiety down, sure. Spoiler review for something I hadn’t seen yet? Well, if I ran out of everything else new to watch, why not?

The Schmoedown was just fun. The atmosphere for the pre-taped studio matches was fantastic, but once the show started doing live events, it cranked the atmosphere up to eleven. Hearing “And your winner…” and the live crowd erupting in applause gave me such a thrill. I wanted to be there, have fun with everyone around me, which was so strange to feel since I hate being in crowds of people.

I followed the show weekly for four years before it was announced that things would change. In 2020, the Schmoedown changed formats for Season 7 to where there would be factions, starting with a draft of the players. This change had me so excited for the season to come. I love sports, so the change to more of a sports setting for the league was something that I was very intrigued by.

Excited for the season, I sent out a tweet and asked if there were any Schmoedown podcasts out there, and got several responses from people with suggestions. I started to go into competitors’ Twitch streams at night, had my name complimented by VIDEODREW, who is my favorite Schmoedown competitor ever, and ended up in Discords with other fellow Schmoedown fans. I began to involve myself in the community that surrounded the Schmoedown, something I had never done before.

In one of those Discords, I met three men who were going to start a podcast about the Schmoedown, and I offered to send out a tweet for them whenever they posted an episode. The Let’s Get Ready to Talk Schmoedown podcast was born, and I gained a chosen family from it. They’ve stuck with me through ups and downs, and I don’t know what I’d do without them.

Around this same time, I became a moderator for VIDEODREW, which was the beginning of a beautiful friendship that means the world to me. Drew was my favorite Schmoedown competitor, but in the four years that have passed, she has become one of my best friends, one of my favorite people to talk to, and someone who I love to be around.

Oh, and then the coronavirus pandemic hit and the world shut down.

We kept doing podcasts as the Schmoedown adapted and went digital for most of Season 7 and Season 8. I went from sending a few tweets to scheduling guests, making streams, uploading audio, and so much more. The podcast grew into a network, and now we have both entertainment-based and sports-based channels. I started to appear on them slowly, and now I appear regularly on both.

With the pandemic more under control, the Schmoedown returned to a studio setting for Season 9, but sadly ended with the final Schmoedown Spectacular VII on October 1, 2022. We did an over nine-hour-long watchalong of Spectacular that day. I was on camera for most of it, which was completely inconceivable to me even six months before that day.

Nearly everything I do daily now is because I became a fan of the Schmoedown. The stuff I do for LGRN. The jobs I currently have at Lunch Break Hot Take, The RouG Pod, and The Reactorverse. The sense of purpose that I have regained. It’s all because of the Schmoedown.

And to this day, I still do a show on the network about the Schmoedown. This Was The Schmoedown is a retrospective on the show I love so much, and new episodes co-hosted by myself and Josh Cohen are posted monthly.

My life as I know it now would be completely different if I hadn’t gone to see “Batman v Superman” that day, hated it so much that I needed validation of my feelings, and found Collider Video and the Schmoedown.

It’s so weird to feel thankful for that movie’s existence.