Cageside Community Star Ratings results for Battleground 2017

The community at Cageside Seats was recently asked to assign star ratings for all 8 matches that took place at Battleground 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.
• 2.25 to 3.75 stars: The percentage of votes for more than 2 stars but less than 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 Battleground 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:

Analysis

The community AVG of 4.18 stars for New Day’s match blew away the field. 81.87% of the votes for this match were for 4 stars or more; no other match on this card even reached 31% in that category. Only 2.07% of the votes for New Day’s match were for 2 stars or less; every other match on this card scored at least 18% in that category. This one was a no-brainer pick by the community as match of the night.

The next highest AVG (3.29 stars) went to the pre-show match featuring Tye Dillinger versus Aiden English. It’s probably not a good sign when the pre-show match is judged to be the second best match of the night. This one was greatly helped by 14.52% of its votes for 5 stars (highest in that category out of all 8 matches) and only 62 total votes.

The AVG for the remaining 6 matches each fell below 3 stars.

Owens and Styles scored an AVG of 2.99 stars. 62.24% of the votes landed between 2.25 and 3.75 stars, which was the highest mark of the night in that category.

The AVG for Natalya’s match was 2.78 stars. This one scored pretty similarly to KO’s match across most categories. The main difference is that Natalya’s match scored 25.83% of its votes for 2 stars or less, while KO’s match only scored a 18.88% in that category.

Nakamura’s match came in next with an AVG of 2.60 stars. 35.77% of the votes for this match fell at 2 stars or less.

Zayn’s match and Mahal’s match both had an AVG of 2.34 stars. Mahal’s match was the more polarizing bout, with 10.48% of the votes for 5 stars and 10.81% of the votes for 0 stars; Zayn’s match did not even reach 5% at either of those extremes. Sami’s match had stronger middle-tier support, with 45.26% of its votes landing between 2.25 stars to 3.75 stars; Mahal’s match only scored 30.81% in that category. Mahal’s match also had a whopping 620 total votes, compared to just 95 votes for Zayn’s match.

Cena’s flag match had the lowest AVG of the night, scoring just 2.06 stars. This match was widely panned, with 62.02% of the votes for 2 stars or less and 13.57% of the votes coming in at 0 stars. This match also saw 10.47% of its votes go for 5 stars, which is a pretty big number for a match with such a low AVG. There wasn’t much support in the middle, with only 16.67% of the votes landing between 2.25 and 3.75 stars.

Overall, the Battleground 2017 card was a dud for the Cageside Seats community. The community has graded 108 total matches thus far; Cena’s match has the 6th worst AVG, Mahal and Zayn are tied for the 13th worst AVG, and Nakamura’s match has the 21st worst AVG. New Day and Dillinger are the only ones ranked in the upper half of the list.

Dave Meltzer agreed that New Day’s match was the best of the night, but he only gave it 3.5 stars.

There were 4 very large Meltz Gap values on the night. Meltzer only gave Dillinger’s match 1.5 stars, while the community AVG was 3.29 stars. Meltzer hated the Punjabi Prison match; his star rating of 0.75 stars fell far below the community AVG of 2.34 stars. His star rating for Nakamura’s match (1.5 stars) was much harsher than the community AVG of 2.60 stars. Finally, Meltzer issued Cena’s match a 3 star rating and thought it was the third best match of the night; the community graded Cena’s match as the worst of the night.

None of the Meltz Gap values ended up below 0.25 stars on this card, so Meltzer and the community didn’t really see eye-to-eye on these matches.

Community Feedback

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

The Usos vs. New Day

Comment from: MizParticipationAward

4.25

Best match of the night and it probably would have been even if the rest of the card wasn’t dreck. This was really good. That mid air super kick spot on Xavier Woods brought back memories of Shawn Michaels and Shelton Benjamin. I loved how the Usos were ready for all the tricks the New Day pulled last time like Wood’s dive getting countered by the kick and Kofi’s trust fall getting him destroyed but the New Day had some new ones ready for them. Happy to see Xavier get the pin he’s had a long road to get here and he deserves to be the star he is the guy is one of the true gems of WWE and he was on fire out there tonight.

Tye Dillinger vs. Aiden English

Comment from: Flashfire

3.00

A good enough, serviceable match to get things started off. Both had the chance to show a few things, and it was fine. Not great, not bad, but better than a lot of the show.

AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens

Comment from: Monster Rain

3.00

I gave it 3 stars because I didn’t like the finish. The rest of the match was solid, but the ending was incredibly awkward.

Charlotte vs. Becky vs. Lana vs. Tamina vs. Natalya

Comment from: J-E-T-S-Just-Not-Quite-Yet

2. Which is sad because it started off very well.

But dumb moves started the wreck, lightning round eliminations kept it going, poor timing and a bad finish put it out of its misery.

No one came out looking worse, but out of the 6 women out there none of them came out looking any better either.

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Baron Corbin

Comment from: The Skinnyfatass

1.

This was the worst match on the card except for the Punjabi Prison match. Slow as hell, had the babyface stalling by pacing outside the ring, Nakamura in the bearhug for what felt like hours and with a finish that felt like a kick in the balls.

At least the crowd got to sing along with The Rising Sun for once.

Sami Zayn vs. Mike Kanellis

Comment from: King Blueberry

Can I just give 5 stars to Bennett's theme music?

Jinder Mahal vs. Randy Orton

Comment from: CowboySoldierTx

Its a 1 folks, its a 1!

What a mess of a crappy match. I gave it a 1 for the shock of the Yeti returning… Wait that wasn’t the Yeti… They actually brought back the Great… I quit.

John Cena vs. Rusev

Comment from: phlash74

One star

and almost entirely for the AA through the tables which was pretty cool, I must admit.

Stupid stipulation, overly predictable finish, oversold by both Cena and the announce team (yeah, a midcard FLAG MATCH on a B PPV is the most important match of a 16 time world champion’s career). Going beyond the sheer ridiculousness of how hard it was for these athletes to climb FOUR steps, the worst moment was when Rusev knocked the stand off the American platform to prevent Cena from getting to it, did a move to Cena, then PUT THE STAND BACK IN PLACE! Like seriously, why would you not throw that thing into the crowd?

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

Which number stands out to you the most?