:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54558365/203_PAY_04302017hm_3092__96cfaf5c77e668c4acc4243272b36200.0.jpg)
Every time a WWE pay-per-view (PPV) event is on the horizon, the staff of Cageside Seats 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.
Five different staff members predicted the winners for the matches that took place at Payback 2017 (Sun., April 30, 2017) from the SAP Center in San Jose, California. 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 Payback 2017 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 and the number "0" is an incorrect prediction. 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.
The line for Bray Wyatt’s match can be interpreted as follows: “4 out of 6 predictions for Wyatt’s match were correct, which is a predictability rating of 66.7%.”
Staff Predictions for Payback 2017
| Match | Geno | Sean | Cain | Kyle | Rev | Polls | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Match | Geno | Sean | Cain | Kyle | Rev | Polls | Total |
| Enzo & Cass vs. The Club | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16.7 |
| Kevin Owens vs. Chris Jericho | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Neville vs. Austin Aries | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 33.3 |
| Hardy Boyz vs. Cesaro & Sheamus | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 66.7 |
| Bayley vs. Alexa Bliss | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 50.0 |
| Seth Rollins vs. Samoa Joe | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 33.3 |
| Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 66.7 |
| Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 50.0 |
| 37.5 | 12.5 | 50.0 | 50.0 | 37.5 | 50.0 | 39.6 |
These numbers add up to 19 correct predictions and 29 incorrect predictions, which means the overall predictability rating for Payback 2017 is 39.6%. For comparison's sake, the overall predictability rating for 2015 WWE PPVs was 63.4% and the for 2016 PPVs it was 61.1%.
Since the start of 2015, Elimination Chamber 2015 (38.9%) is the only PPV with a lower predictability rating than Payback 2017.
The staff of Cageside Seats struggled with predicting the winners at Payback 2017. How did you fare, Cagesiders?