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When a WWE pay-per-view (PPV) event is on the horizon, the staff of Cageside Seats usually 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 Fastlane 2019 (Sun., Mar. 10) from the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. 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 Fastlane 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.
Three of the ten matches at Fastlane were omitted, which is an important detail to keep in mind. In the case of Bryan’s match and Andrade’s match, the advertised match was changed at the last minute to add at least one other superstar, which rendered the staff predictions outdated. In the case of Kofi’s match, it was not advertised ahead of time so it was not included in the staff predictions.
The line for Becky’s match can be interpreted as follows: “6 out of 7 predictions for Becky’s match were correct, which is a predictability rating of 85.7%.”
Staff Predictions for Fastlane 2019
| Match | Geno | Sean | Cain | Claire | Kyle | Stella | Polls | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Match | Geno | Sean | Cain | Claire | Kyle | Stella | Polls | Total |
| New Day vs. Rusev & Nakamura | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 57.1 |
| The Usos vs. Miz & Shane | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 100.0 |
| Asuka vs. Mandy Rose | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 85.7 |
| Revival vs. Ricochet & Black vs. Gable & Roode | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 57.1 |
| Bayley & Banks vs. Tamina & Jax | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 85.7 |
| Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 85.7 |
| The Shield vs. Corbin, Lashley, McIntyre | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 85.7 |
| Total | 57.1 | 28.6 | 85.7 | 100.0 | 85.7 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 79.6 |
These numbers add up to 39 correct predictions and 10 incorrect predictions, which means the overall predictability rating for Fastlane 2019 is 79.6%.
This increases the overall predictability rating for 2019 WWE PPVs from 60.9% up to 66.7% (106 correct versus 53 incorrect predictions). For comparison's sake, the overall predictability ratings each year from from 2015 through 2018 were 63.4%, 61.1%, 61.6%, and 58.7%.
This PPV was about as predictable as it gets for WWE. Only two of the matches had a predictability rating less than 85.7%, and somehow one of those trickier matches to predict included Rusev even though he never wins on PPV.
In the case of the matches that were changed at the last second and therefore not included, everyone on staff predicted Bryan would beat Owens, and I doubt Ali’s inclusion would have changed that for most people if it was known ahead of time. Staff was split down the middle on the advertised match of Rey versus Andrade, and my best guess is their match became more predictable by turning it into a 4-way for Samoa Joe’s United States championship. But none of these matches were included in the above data so I’ll leave it to the reader to assess how those changes affected the predictability of Fastlane.
The staff of Cageside Seats had a great night with predicting the winners at Fastlane 2019. How did you fare, Cagesiders?