Cageside Community Star Ratings results for Royal Rumble 2017

Last week the community at Cageside Seats was asked to assign star ratings for all 8 matches that took place at Royal Rumble 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 Royal Rumble 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:

The voter turnout for AJ’s match was extremely high compared to the others, with a grand total of 1557 votes. Only one other match on the card broke 700 total votes; Cena’s match had 728 votes for just the 5-star response.

Styles versus Cena was a beloved match. The Q1 value (4.5 stars) for this match was actually higher than the Q3 value for all but one other match (Owens vs. Reigns) on the card. This can be visually seen by noticing that the bottom of the blue box for Cena versus Styles is higher than the top of the blue box for nearly every other match.

My guess is that the AVG value for that match of 4.69 stars will be the highest result for 2017. It’s really difficult to get a community vote to agree so strongly in one direction on a match. 96.66% of the votes were for 4 stars or more, 0.77% of the votes were for 2 stars or less, and 46.76% of votes were for 5 stars.

For comparison’s sake, the next highest AVG so far since November 2016 came in at 4.38 stars for Styles versus Ambrose at TLC 2016. 90.20% of the votes were for 4 stars or more, 1.30% of the votes were for 2 stars or less, and 15.82% of votes were for 5 stars.

The Royal Rumble match itself ranked in the middle of the pack, with an AVG of 3.38 stars. Neville’s match with Swann actually just scraped by it, with an AVG of 3.48 stars. The main difference here is that 11.46% of votes for the Rumble match came in at 2 stars or lower and 1.74% of votes were at 0 stars. These corresponding percentages for Swann’s match came in at 6.06% and 0.51%, respectively. My guess is that the Roman Reigns troll job during the Royal Rumble match tanked the star rating for just enough people to make a difference.

The Royal Rumble match also had the lowest percentage of 5-star votes out of all 8 matches.

With an AVG of 4.05 stars, Owens versus Reigns is only the 4th match since November 2016 to surpass an AVG of 4 stars.

The three lowest AVG values of the night came from the three women’s matches. This wasn’t true for Meltzer, who ranked Charlotte’s match (3.25 stars) above Cesaro’s match (3 stars).

The SmackDown 6-woman tag team match was greatly boosted by 12.84% of its votes coming in at 5 stars. This result was the second highest percentage in that 5-star category, only trailing Styles versus Cena, and it helps explain why its Q3 value of 4 stars is higher than the corresponding value for Cesaro and Charlotte.

Cesaro’s tag team match had the lowest voter turnout; it was the only match that did not reach 100 votes. There were also no comments on this match from the Cageside community.

Banks versus Jax was easily the most widely panned match of the night, with 48.13% of its votes for 2 stars or less, and 10.00% of its votes for 0 stars.

Meltzer and the community generally agreed with their view on these matches; the Meltz Gap values for this card all came in at 0.50 or less for 7 of the 8 matches. The Meltz Gap values for Styles, Swann, and Charlotte all came in at 0.06 or less.

The biggest difference with Meltzer applied to Sasha’s match, where he gave it a rating of 1 star. The community agreed that Sasha’s match was the worst of the night, but the community still came in at a considerably higher AVG score of 2.18 stars.

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

AJ Styles vs. John Cena

Comment from Kaoru Ichinose:

4.5 Stars. It might not have been the greatest match I’ve ever seen, but it was pretty damn flawless.

Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns

Comment from phlash74:

4 stars. Loved Jericho’s reactions throughout, and they made good use of the No-DQ stipulation. That frog splash through the table looked brutal.

Rich Swann vs. Neville

Comment from The Swiss Lasskicker:

Fun match with some great spots, terrific storytelling and thankfully got a good amount of time. Hope Cruisers get lengthy matches outside of just PPV and 205 Live main events, because when given the opportunity, they can really shine and make a mark.

Royal Rumble match

Comment from caitlynah12:

I just felt it could have been...better. Trolling with Roman was fine/funny/smart but aside from that it was pretty forgettable. Strowman went out oddly early, then nothing happened. Sami and Dean got to stay for long periods of time but they didn’t do anything memorable. Enzo at 27 was stupid. A handful of high teens/low 20’s also felt like a waste because there was such suspense and hope and many ultimately did nothing whatsoever. But Strowman looked like a monster, Ellsworth’s spot was funny, Corbin looked good, the Mary Poppins spot, and I don’t mind Orton winning, fun Luke Harper/Bray Wyatt spot.

Charlotte Flair vs. Bayley

Comment from Lucean:

This match was a pleasant surprise for me as it was the one I was most concerned about before-hand. There were some clumsy spots, but I thought Charlotte’s character work was just so superb that it created a really great backbone for the match that carried it through. Especially the slap from the turnbuckle before the finish was just great.

SD 6-woman tag team match

Comment from RevengencerAlf:

The match itself was ok. Maybe a 2.75 or a 3. It wasn’t super exciting or notable in itself, but it did everything it was supposed to. It set up and furthered multiple feuds and made me excited about seeing all of these women in upcoming matches, so it did its job.

Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax

Comment from Leia Blaze:

5. I am not a mark. Nope. But holy shit that was a fun squash, with a great story to it.

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

Which number stands out to you the most?