Critically Acclaimed

**Critically Acclaimed** was a Movie Trvia Schmoedown team consisting of William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold.

## History

### **Faction Wars**

William Bibbiani announced himself on the Schmoedown scene towards the end of Season 3 with a match against fellow debutant Marc Andreyko. In a fantastic show of movie trivia knowledge, Bibbiani managed a to answer all of his questions correct on his way to a victory over “The Android,” breaking the points record for the Singles Division in the process. Following the match, John Rocha invited him to become the 3rd member of his faction, with Robert Meyer Burnett joining a just few weeks later to complete the Four Horsemen.

His time in the Horsemen was not a good one though. While he beat Eliot Dewberry via TKO, he opened Season 4 with a loss to JTE (who had not won a Singles match since Season 1) and he also fell to Kristian Harloff during the Chairman’s revenge tour. Meanwhile, his relationship with John Rocha soured. As the months went on, Bibbiani had his head turned by Ricky Hayberg and famously left the Four Horsemen at Collision, announcing that he was creating a new faction with Ricky – The Growling Commandos – and bringing in his podcast co-host Witney Seibold to become his new teammate, thus creating the team of Critically Acclaimed.

### **The Debut**

Announcing that “We’re smarter than you!”, Critically Acclaimed moved quickly to prove it. Their first match was against Only Stupid Answers, and Round 1 saw them take a monumental lead with Bibbiani going 7/8 and Seibold getting a perfect round on his debut in the league, and hitting his bonus question. While Only Stupid Answers pulled it back slightly in Round 2, they were only able to hit their 2-point question in Round 3, handing Bibbiani and Seibold a 23-19 TKO victory.

### **Bracket Busters**

Critically Acclaimed’s next match came in the opening round of the 2017 Ultimate Schmoedown against fans and reactors Late To The Party, who entered into the match with 0-1 record, following a loss to Team Action. This match saw Critically Acclaimed have their worst Round 1 performance as a team to date, finishing 10-7 up. Late To The Party got maximum points in Round 2 with a spin of Comedies, but on their spin of Hitchcock, Critically Acclaimed could only manage 8 points, while their opponents also managed to steal a point. Round 3 was a close affair but Late To The Party held on, winning by one point. It was the 2017 Upset of the Year, and it broke fans’ brackets around the world.

### **Back with a Vengeance**

Bibbs and Witney returned in Season 5 with a match against Superhero News, with Hayberg quitting as their manager in the middle of the opening promo. Critically Acclaimed came out of Round 1 with a lead of 3 points, which had doubled by the end of Round 2. This lead proved unassailable as Superhero News could only answer their 2-pointer, resulting in a 25-21 TKO victory. They looked to quickly back this up with a match against M.O.D.O.K. and although both teams had identical entrances, their performances were vastly different, with Modok falling 4 points behind in Round 1. They pulled back 2 points in Round 2, but were unable to answer any of their questions in Round 3, giving Critically Acclaimed their second consecutive TKO victory, this time by a score of 19-17.

### **An Enforced Split**

Critically Acclaimed were on a roll and looked set for a Number 1 Contender match in the near future, until it was announced that teams would be split up as part of the Ultimate Schmoedown Anarchy tournament. Bibbiani was given a new Anarchy partner in Matt Knost and under the management of Emma Fyffe they went 1-1 in the tournament as the Cinemaniacs, losing to eventual tournament winners Who’s The Boss. Witney was paired with Marc Edward Heuck as The Self-Righteous Brothers, with Jonny Loquasto managing. They lost to Take The Cannoli in the opening round, but the 35-31 score had Critically Acclaimed fans worried that Witney would chose to stick with his new partner.

While their new teams had limited success, Bibbiani also used this period to cash in his Free 4 All MVP award for a Number 1 contender match with former teams champion Jeff Sneider. He KO’d “The Insneider” and defeated Marc Andreyko to win the Singles title that had been vacated by Samm Levine’s retirement, although Bibbs lost the belt to his old rival John Rocha two months later.

### **Contenders**

And so that brings us to 2019. Season 6’s first match in the Teams Division was a Number 1 Contender Match between Critically Acclaimed and The Harris Brothers. Though Lon Harris managed a perfect Round 1 and the bonus question, the score going into Round 2 was still tied at 12-12. Bibbs and Witney opened up a 4 point lead in Round 2 and when it came to Round 3, The Harris Brothers went 0/3 to give Critically Acclaimed the 24-20 TKO victory and setting up a Championship Match with the Shirewolves in March. They had a 2 point lead in round 1 and going into round 2 spun John Carpenter from the wheel, which was a strength from both players. But unfortunately they only went 2 for 6 and were down by 6 points at the end of that. At the end of rounds 3 and 4, Critically Acclaimed were down by 7 points so they needed to catch up to avoid a TKO. They answered all three of them, but ultimately lost as the Shirewolves maintained the belt by a score of 35-33.

After competing at the Free 4 All together, rookie contestant Brendan Meyer starts to become obsessed with Bibbiani and begins to hang around him, much to Bibbiani's annoyance. Then, Meyer meets up with Seibold and tells him that Bibbiani had been giving him advice, which allows Seibold to have a talk with Bibbiani. He ultimately tells him that because Meyer has been constantly going up to him, Seibold decided to break things off with Bibbiani, marking the end of Critically Acclaimed.