When a WWE pay-per-view (PPV) event is on the horizon, the staff of Cageside Seats usually offers predictions for all of the advertised matches on the card. This data can be used to calculate a simple predictability rating for any event.
Six different staff members predicted the winners for the matches that took place at SummerSlam 2019 (Sun., Aug. 11) from the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Staff members received credit for a correct prediction of the winner of any match, even if they were wrong about the context of that victory.
The Cageside Seats match preview articles for SummerSlam also offered polls allowing Cagesiders the chance to weigh in with their predictions.
The following chart contains the prediction results for every match. The leftmost column includes the full match list. Below each staff member’s name, the number “1” is a correct prediction, the number “0” is an incorrect prediction, and empty spaces indicate that no prediction data was available. The rightmost column contains the overall predictability rating for every match, and the very last row shows the overall accuracy of each individual staff member.
Two of the 12 matches were not advertised early enough for us to make predictions, and so they were omitted from this exercise. This includes Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross vs. The IIconics, as well as Apollo Crews vs. Buddy Murphy.
Kofi Kingston’s match with Randy Orton ended in a double count out. I omitted the poll results for this match because there was no option for a finish without a winner.
The line for Ricochet’s match can be interpreted as follows: “6 out of 7 predictions for Ricochet’s match were correct, which is a predictability rating of 85.7%.”
Staff Predictions for SummerSlam 2019
Match | Geno | Sean | Cain | Claire | Kyle | Stella | Polls | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Match | Geno | Sean | Cain | Claire | Kyle | Stella | Polls | Total |
Drew Gulak vs. Oney Lorcan | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 85.7 |
Becky Lynch vs. Natalya | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 85.7 |
Goldberg vs. Dolph Ziggler | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 100.0 |
AJ Styles vs. Ricochet | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 85.7 |
Bayley vs. Ember Moon | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 100.0 |
Kevin Owens vs. Shane McMahon | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 100.0 |
Trish Stratus vs. Charlotte Flair | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 100.0 |
Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | |
Bray Wyatt vs. Finn Balor | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 100.0 |
Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14.3 |
Total | 60.0 | 80.0 | 90.0 | 80.0 | 70.0 | 80.0 | 88.9 | 78.3 |
These numbers add up to 54 correct predictions and 15 incorrect predictions, which means the overall predictability rating for SummerSlam 2019 is 78.3%.
This increases the overall predictability rating for 2019 WWE PPVs from 64.6% up to 66.3% (364 correct versus 185 incorrect predictions). For comparison's sake, the overall predictability ratings each year from from 2015 through 2018 were 63.4%, 61.1%, 61.6%, and 58.7%.
SummerSlam 2019 was the third consecutive WWE PPV with a predictability rating of greater than 75%, following the in the footsteps of Stomping Grounds and Extreme Rules. In that time the overall predictability rating for 2019 WWE PPVs has increased from 59.1% up to 66.3%.
Furthermore, the staff predictions for SummerSlam show that there was strong agreement on nearly every match. For any given match, no more than one staff member strayed away from the majority prediction.
Now here are the voting percentages from the Cageside community polls for the winners of each match. The voting percentage for Kingston will also be included even though his match did not have a winner:
- 81%: Drew Gulak
- 82%: Becky Lynch
- 87%: Goldberg
- 66%: AJ Styles
- 71%: Bayley
- 91%: Kevin Owens
- 70%: Charlotte Flair
- 64%: Kofi Kingston
- 95%: Bray Wyatt
- 20%: Seth Rollins
It doesn’t appear that the Cageside community was conflicted on selecting a winner for these matches either, as there aren’t too many results in that middle range of 35% to 65%.
The staff of Cageside Seats had a great night with predicting the winners at SummerSlam 2019. How did you fare, Cagesiders?