SPOILERS FOR MTS EPISODE #5

Friday Night Titans on a Saturday?

Technical issues delayed the Friday night program on YouTube until Saturday morning. While I understand that things happen, the Movie Trivia Schmoedown’s new program Friday Night Titans cannot afford to repeat these tech troubles. If you want to make the Movie Trivia Schmoedown something more than just another YouTube show, then you must be able to show the episode when you promote it is going to be shown. I’m sure that everyone behind the scenes at the MTS was frustrated, and I do not mean to pile on, but I am saying that this needs to be an exception.

Putting that behind us, the full episode came out Saturday and featured a major storyline.

Ben Bateman came out to the set and challenged last year’s rookie sensation Rick “The Rager” Raddus, the best 3-0 competitor. However, The Rager came out and instead and said that he would accept the challenge only if Ben found himself a partner and took on himself and his partner Brother Lomis in a teams match. Raddus was sure that Ben would never be able to find a partner because of the number of bridges he had burned. Ben had until the second part of the episode to find someone.

I knew immediately who it was going to be. I have seen this story happen in wrestling several times over the years and there was only one competitor who fit the bill and who was most likely there. It was Andrew Ghai, Bateman’s former partner in Team Action.

The seemingly one time reunion of Team Action was fun and reminded everyone what great jerk characters Team Action was. Ghai, who was always the B-player on Team Action, played the best game he had ever played (with the possible exception on the match with Dan Murrell), secured his first ever perfect round one and showed his personality throughout the match. It had to be disjointing for The Reckoning, the team of Raddus and Lomis.

Andrew Ghai has been doing a ton of Schmoedown podcasts, looking at questions and discussing proper strategies and you could tell he was a stronger competitor than when we last saw him. Bateman looked remarkably calm and relaxed, something he had not been in awhile. Together, they were in complete control and The Reckoning looked like they were deer in the headlights.

Team Action got the big TKO victory and celebrated as they were wont to do.

including with some selfies…

I do not know if this is a total return to competition for Andrew Ghai or just a one off. Ghai has been a sensational member of the hosts at the desk and that seemed as if it was going to be his future involvement in the Schmoedown. However, he definitely looked good today and he and ben were able to easily step right back into the jerk-chemistry that had taken them so far a few years ago.

This is something that could not have happened last year during the faction race and it supports the idea to make the season more scripted and less real sports (even though the matches are completely competitive). These kind of surprises certainly are a benefit of the new format for Season 9.

There was an Innergeekdom undercard match with Brandon Hanna’s new gimmick, The Hornet. Hanna’s new incredibly friendly and nice persona is begging for a heel turn at some point in the season. If he can have some success before that re-turn, it could be huge. Hanna won in a average performance against Jesse Swift.

And the building of the heel faction The Stars continued as Nick and Jacoby from Chaos Theory tried to talk to Roxy, but it led to Nick turning on his partner and joining the Stars. Nick Hundley reminds me of WWE superstar Kevin Owens and when he turned his back on Jacoby, DON’T TRUST ANYONE.

Next Friday, Bateman vs. Reddus is scheduled and should be epic.