Cageside Community Star Ratings results for Elimination Chamber 2017

Last week the community at Cageside Seats was asked to assign star ratings for all 8 matches that took place at Elimination Chamber 2017.

The votes have all been tabulated, and for every match I will include these summary statistics:

• Votes: Total number of votes cast for a given match.
• AVG: The weighted average of every vote.
• Q1: First quartile, which is the value that roughly 25% of the votes fall at or below.
• Q2: Second quartile (aka median), which is the value that roughly 50% of the votes fall at or below.
• Q3: Third quartile, which is the value that roughly 75% of the votes fall at or below.
• Meltzer: Dave Meltzer’s star rating for a given match.
• Meltz Gap: The magnitude of the difference between Meltzer and AVG.
• Cain: My own personal star rating for the match.
• 5-stars: The percentage of votes for 5 stars.
• 4-stars or more: The percentage of votes for at least 4 stars.
• 2-stars or less: The percentage of votes that did not surpass 2 stars.
• 0-stars: The percentage of votes for 0 stars.

The following sortable table includes all the results of the Cageside Community Star Ratings for Elimination Chamber 2017.

Here is a graphical summary of some of the numbers from the table. For any given match, the bottom of the blue rectangle is Q1 and the top of the blue rectangle is Q3. In most cases the blue rectangle includes the values where roughly the middle 50% of the votes were cast for that match. The thin line above the blue rectangle shows where roughly the highest 25% of the votes were cast, and the thin blue line below the rectangle shows where roughly the lowest 25% of the votes were cast. The matches are displayed left to right, sorted by AVG in descending order:

Voter Abuse

The results for Mojo Rawley’s match need to be addressed because the poll results initially showed 41 5-star votes out of 219 total votes. This seemed like a clear case of voter abuse, as no other match came close to receiving such a high percentage of 5-star votes, and there was little other evidence in the results suggesting that this match would be the one leading the way in that category.

In every Community Star Ratings post I claim that there is no such thing as a wrong answer, and I truly do believe that due to how ridiculously subjective pro wrestling can be. I think there may be some people who legitimately felt like Rawley and Hawkins had an incredible match. However, I am skeptical that 41 out of 219 people felt that way, based on the other voting results for this match and the other 7 matches.

So to anybody out there who may have abused the poll, here’s my response: I think I get it. I have abused an internet poll or two in my day as well. If I only had the options to either spend 15 minutes watching Braun Strowman try to wrestle or spending 15 minutes spamming votes in a Curt Hawkins poll, I’d probably choose the latter. So if that choice adds value to your life in that moment, I’m not going to argue too much with you.

However I’m not going to just sit around and let this happen so egregiously without adjusting the data. I devised an algorithm to come up with a sensible estimate of how many of these votes weren’t legitimate, and it led to the deletion of 25 of those 41 5-star votes. I’m not claiming this is anywhere close to a perfect handling of the situation, but I think the data is in a much better state with this adjustment than without it. If there are some people who aren’t happy with my data manipulation, I get it, but I am personally more satisfied with trying to weed that kind of noise out when it is so blatant. In fact there are a couple of other matches from the last few months that also had an abnormally high percentage of 5-star votes, and at some point I might revisit those matches and apply a similar algorithm, if the abuse looks as obvious as it was here. If I make any such changes to past data, I will report the results in a future edition of this series.

Analysis

The Elimination Chamber match convincingly separated itself from the pack in the voting results. It had the highest AVG (4.25), the highest percentage of 5-star votes (13.49%), the highest percentage of votes for 4-stars or more (85.34%), the lowest percentage of 0-star votes (0.73%), and the lowest percentage of votes for 2-stars or less (1.17%).

Ziggler’s match almost completed this circle on the opposite side of the spectrum by having the lowest AVG (1.83), the highest percentage of votes for 0-stars (12.09%), the highest percentage of votes for 2-stars or less (66.05%), and the lowest percentage of votes for 4-stars or more (11.63%). However Ziggler’s match did have a higher percentage of votes for 5-stars (6.51%) than Naomi’s match (6.30%), Harper’s match (5.85%), Becky’s match (2.96%), and Tag Team Turmoil (2.70%).

Harper’s match and the chamber match were the only ones with at least 30% of the votes for 4-stars or more.

Rawley’s match and Ziggler’s match were the only ones with at least 35% of the votes for 2-stars or less.

The matches featuring Becky (3.26) and Alexa (3.25) pretty much had the same AVG, but they got there in slightly different ways. Alexa’s match veered a bit more towards the upper and lower ends, with a slightly higher percentage of votes for 5 stars, votes for 4-stars or more, and votes for 2-stars or less. Becky’s match had a bigger presence in the middle of the voting board, with over 52% of its votes falling between 2.5 to 3.5 stars (compared to 45% for Alexa).

Nikki Bella’s match had the lowest AVG (2.92) out of all the women’s matches. This match was brought down with 26.47% of its votes for 2-stars or less and 6.72% of its votes for 0 stars; neither Becky nor Alexa’s match came close to reaching these levels at the bottom of the voting options. It’s also worth noting that Nikki’s match had the second highest percentage of 5-star votes (10.08%) out of all 8 matches. This is one reason why Nikki’s match has one of the longest blue rectangles in the above graph.

Harper, Becky, Alexa, and Tag Team Turmoil had the lowest representation of votes on the extremes. The sum of votes at 5-stars or 0-stars for these matches came in at under 8%. The other 4 matches each scored between 14% and 19% on this metric.

Tag Team Turmoil had the lowest voter turnout, with only 111 votes. The adjusted voter turnout for Rawley’s match (194 votes) is the only other one that fell below 200 votes. Meanwhile the chamber match had the most votes (682), and Naomi’s match had the second most votes (413), with at least 140 more votes than either of the other two women’s matches.

The biggest Meltz Gap goes to Alexa’s match, with Meltzer’s rating (2.25) disagreeing with the community AVG (3.25) by 1 full star. Tag Team Turmoil had the next biggest Meltz Gap (0.82 stars).

5 of the 8 matches had a Meltz Gap value of 0.26 or less. The community and Meltzer saw eye-to-eye more often than not on this card.

Overall, Meltzer’s star ratings for the 8 matches add up to 21.5 stars, versus 24.27 stars for the sum of the community AVG values.

Community Feedback

Finally, here are some thoughts on these matches from various Cagesiders:

Elimination Chamber match

Comment from: vishnu_nuttsky

4.5 Overall a good match, and I enjoyed the new Chamber design, only (very, very small) complaint is the pace of eliminations.

Luke Harper vs. Randy Orton

Comment from: ScoobySnax19

3.25...As is typical with Orton matches for me, they took too long to get where they were going.

Becky Lynch vs. Mickie James

Comment from: Skyjacker

3.75-4 pretty good match. People are going to underrate this match because of a lack of spots and because it’s wrestled in a way that’s unfamiliar to the audience, but in reality you don’t need a bunch of spots to have a really good match. I feel the intensity, psychology and storytelling more than made up for it.

Alexa Bliss vs. Naomi

Comment from: D'Arve21

Solid 3 stars from me. Some really cool looking spots and I feel that their chemistry was better than Lynch and Bliss have had in their previous matches.They kept the crowd engaged and their pop for Naomi at the end was a real feel good moment. I look forward to seeing them get more time in the future.

Nikki Bella vs. Natalya

Comment from: Wrestling Fangirl

Gave it a 2. The problem with this match is the problem with the dq Carmella match. Throughout the feud they have been trying to kill each other but then when it comes to the match to actually kill each other it doesn’t live up to the build up and is just average.

Tag Team Turmoil

Comment from: GL_Dread

I thought it was a lot better than people give it credit for. The story worked well. American Alpha won, even after being screwed by the Usos, the persevered and powered back to establish themselves as heroic, dominant, fighting champions. That’s not to say it couldn’t have been better. Honestly, I wish Alpha had come out earlier and iron manned this shit. Stumbling, exhausted and battling like their lives depend on it. But regardless, they came out looking like a million bucks. Like there’s nobody in the division that could stop them. And that’s perfect. They’re the champions and for good reason.

Mojo Rawley vs. Curt Hawkins

Comment from: Sylvalum

This match was pretty decent, I like both guys. Thumbs up.

Apollo Crews & Kalisto vs. Dolph Ziggler

Comment from: Jam 3000

2.5 I enjoyed Ziggler taking out Kalisto at the beginning of the match. I enjoyed Ziggler working Apollo’s neck throughout the match. Apollo was awesome as always (just wish his characterization was as strong as his ring work.) I hated Kalisto getting back into the match. I hated that the audience applauding Dolph for trying to injure Apollo. I’m also confused about why Dolph went for the legs after spending the match working Apollo’s neck.

Those are the results for the Cageside Community Star Ratings for Elimination Chamber 2017. Thanks to everyone who participated!

Which number stands out to you the most?