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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.
Six different staff members predicted the winners for the matches that took place at Backlash 2018 (Sun., May 6, 2018) from the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. 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 Backlash 2018 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.
The community poll for AJ Styles versus Shinsuke Nakamura was omitted, because there was no option listed to describe the actual finish of that match, so there was no way the community could get it right. It’s worth noting that this poll actually ended in an even split between Styles and Nakamura.
The line for the Carmella’s match can be interpreted as follows: “6 out of 7 predictions for Carmella’s match were correct, which is a predictability rating of 85.7%.”
Staff Predictions for Backlash 2018
| Match | Geno | Sean | Cain | Claire | Kyle | Pete | Polls | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Match | Geno | Sean | Cain | Claire | Kyle | Pete | Polls | Total |
| Bayley vs. Ruby Riott | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 57.1 |
| Seth Rollins vs. The Miz | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 85.7 |
| Nia Jax vs. Alexa Bliss | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 85.7 |
| Jeff Hardy vs. Randy Orton | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 71.4 |
| Daniel Bryan vs. Big Cass | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 85.7 |
| Carmella vs. Charlotte Flair | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 85.7 |
| AJ Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | |
| Strowman & Lashley vs. Owens & Zayn | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 57.1 |
| Roman Reigns vs. Samoa Joe | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 57.1 |
| 44.4 | 44.4 | 88.9 | 55.6 | 77.8 | 66.7 | 87.5 | 66.1 |
These numbers add up to 41 correct predictions and 21 incorrect predictions, which means the overall predictability rating for Backlash 2018 is 66.1%.
This increases the overall predictability rating for 2018 WWE PPVs from 53.6% up to 56.0% (183 correct versus 144 incorrect predictions). For comparison's sake, the overall predictability rating for 2015 WWE PPVs was 63.4%, in 2016 it was 61.1%, and in 2017 it was 61.6%.
The staff of Cageside Seats had a pretty good night with predicting the winners at Backlash 2018. How did you fare, Cagesiders?